Faith Intercession 

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11.6).

Introduction

The author of Hebrews defined faith:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval (Hebrews 11.1).

The Bible declares no one can please God apart from faith. In the above definition, we learn that faith is the means of perception that apprehends unseen reality. Through such perception, men and women achieved God’s approval. Why is faith so important to God?

What is Faith?

Faith, trust, and believe mean the same thing. In theology, faith means believing God or in other words, believing the Bible. God has given man three means of perception to obtain knowledge of the external world. They are rationalism, empiricism, and faith. Rationalism derives knowledge about the external world through reason. Empiricism gains knowledge about the external world through sensory perception, through taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing. Faith obtains knowledge about the external word through authority with is beyond personal experience.

Means of Perception
Rationalism	Trusts Reason
Empiricism	Trusts Senses
Faith	Trusts Authority

What is Biblical Faith?

A vast difference exists between these two propositions:

	Statement	Meaning of Statement
1.	I believe in God	Mental Assent
2.	I believe God	Personal Trust

The first proposition is a statement of mental assent. It means one believes in God’s existence. No reliance, trust, or personal engagement with God is present in this statement. It is a non-personal statement about the reality of God’s existence. The second proposition, however, moves far beyond the intellectual assent of God’s existence. It is a statement of personal trust. When one declares that he believes God it means he trusts God. It is personal. It means one believes what God has said. This is Biblical faith. Biblical faith is a personal trust in God and what God has said.

Epistemology or How We Know What We Know

Science deals with knowledge gained through our senses and reason and operates primarily through the scientific method. With the scientific method, one observes the world and formulates a hypothesis or theory. The hypothesis or theory is tested through experimentation. These results are analyzed and interpreted to see if they confirm or deny the theory. New conclusions are drawn and the process begins again. In the scientific method, data are valid if they can be observed and reproduced. If they cannot, they fall outside of the realm of science. Scientific knowledge is extremely valuable. However, valuable as it is, it occupies only a small subset of knowledge. For example, all historical knowledge falls outside of science. No scientist can form a theory and run an experiment to determine if Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, what year he crossed the Rubicon, or even if there was a Julius Caesar. All historical knowledge is based upon authority. To possess historical knowledge requires faith for we must trust historical records. Almost all knowledge is non-scientific. I have never been to India but believe India exists. Why? Because I trust atlases, satellites, and persons who have been there. All news from newspapers, television, radio, and the internet is based upon trust. We directly experience almost no news we receive through the media and no experiment can validate it. It is knowledge based on faith. Similarly, all learning begins by faith. A child begins to learn language, for example, with a parent saying “dog.” The child then says, “dog.” He learns because he trusts the parent.

What’s Special About Faith? or Why Does God Require Faith?

Answering this question is complex. It goes to the heart of the problem God had to solve to save the human race. Adam and Eve’s disobedience caused them to die spiritually (immediately) and physically (later). The Hebrew expressed this thought grammatically as an infinitive absolute: “dying you will die” (מוֹת תָּמוּת). Adam’s action plunged the human race into a condition of sin and death (Genesis 2.17; 1 Corinthians 15.22; Ephesians 2.1-3). Tragic as this was, as soon as man sinned, God began His redemptive plan (Genesis 3.15). Because the penalty of sin was death (Genesis 2.17; Romans 6.23; Ephesians 2.1-2) man was incapable of saving himself (a dead man cannot save himself from death). How then could man be saved?

God’s Dilemma

God’s character is composed of His sovereignty, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, veracity, eternal life, righteousness, immutability, justice, and love. God’s justice demanded death for sin. God’s love for man demanded his salvation–life for man. God created man in His own image (וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, Genesis 1.27) as a living being (הָאָדָם, לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה). He put His breath of life (נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים) into him (Genesis 2.7). Man was God’s special creation. God loved man and desired man to live. How was this possible?

Man could live only if someone who was not dead satisfied God’s justice and paid the penalty for sin. The penalty of sin required death, i.e., blood, for the life of the flesh is in the blood (Genesis 9.4; Leviticus 17.14; Deuteronomy 12.23; John 6.53-54; Hebrews 9.22). As early as Genesis 3.21, we read of God shedding the blood of an animal to provide animal skins to clothe Adam and Eve. This act symbolized God’s means of covering the effects of man’s  sin. God replaced Adam and Eve’s feeble attempt to hide their sin with fig leaves. For hundreds of years God taught this fundamental truth to mankind and later to the Jews. Sin required a blood sacrifice (Hebrews 9.22) which the Jews practiced in their Levitical sacrifices. All pagan peoples also practiced animal sacrifices. But animal deaths could never pay for sin (Hebrews 10.1). They were but a shadow or a type of a greater reality to come. They were temporary and imperfect. What man needed was another “Adam,” a sinless man, to pay his penalty of sin (1 Corinthians 15.22, 45).

This “new” Adam, was, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (1 Corinthians 15.45). As God, He stepped out eternity, became a man, and died to pay man’s sin. Theologians call His work, redemption, reconciliation, justification, atonement, propitiation, redemption, etc. Each of these theological terms examines an aspect of Christ’s salvific work. The proof that Christ’s death was effective in paying for man’s sin was His resurrection.

Faith Throughout History

Faith has always been required as the means of salvation. In Romans 1.7, Paul, quoting Habakkuk the prophet (Habakkuk 2.4), wrote,

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

Hebrews 11 is an account of those who lived victorious lives, conquering the world and death, by faith.

Paul and Faith

With Paul, we discover a new teaching about faith. Paul began his great doctrinal work of Romans with the following introduction:

¹Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, ²which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, ³concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, ⁴who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, ⁵through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake, ⁶among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ;

With this preface, Paul identified himself as God’s chosen apostle and defined his mission: to proclaim the gospel–that Christ died for us and rose from the dead–and to bring about “the obedience of faith” among the Gentiles. Prior to Paul, God’s attention had been on Jew only (with a few exceptions). The ascended Lord commissioned Paul, however, as “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 11.13). This was a vast change of God’s program–something that had not occurred since God called Abraham, 2,000 years before. What did Paul mean by the phrase “obedience of faith” (εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως)? The phrase is a genitive of apposition. It means “obedience, which is faith,” or “obedience, namely, faith.”

Faith had always been required for salvation. However, faith before Paul included works.¹ As an example, consider the Mosaic Law’s requirement for one who had sinned (Leviticus 1). The Law required the sinner to bring a sacrifice to the priest. If a person reasoned, “I believe God will cover my sin but I’m not going to bring an animal” he would not be forgiven because he had disobeyed God, i.e., he had refused to believe God regarding the necessity of the animal sacrifice. A man who brought a sacrifice for sin obeyed God and exercised faith. Faith responds to God by believing what He had said. So under the Mosaic Law faith and works were required (a man’s faith was expressed by his works). God pounded this into the Jews thinking for hundreds of years. This is why Paul had such a difficult time with Jewish believers with his doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Believing Jews were adamant that Paul’s converts could not be saved without work. This is why they insisted that believing Gentiles had to be circumcised and keep the Mosaic Law to be saved (Act 15.1, 5). Paul said no to this. His doctrine became such a source of contention that it precipitated the necessity to resolve the matter. Thus, they gathered for the Council of Jerusalem, c. 49-51 A.D.

The gospel Paul had received came directly from the ascended Lord, not from the Twelve or anyone else (Galatians 1.1, 11-12). Because of this, Paul stood like a bulldog and would not give an inch. Paul’s gospel, that Christ had died for our sins and rose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15.1-4), required no works or Law keeping. It was faith alone or faith + ∅. Paul declared that anyone who believed his gospel became a member of the body of Christ, the Church, (1 Corinthians 12.13; Ephesians 1.22-23; Colossians 1.18) and was set free from the Law and works (Romans 6.14, Galatians 5.18; Ephesians 2.15). Thus, the “obedience of faith” (genitive of apposition) meant that obedience now was faith alone. In other words, according to Paul’s theology (the revelation he had received directly from the glorified Lord), one could not obey God unless one one adhered to faith + ∅. This is why Paul wrote the following to the Galatians:

¹I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; ⁷which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! ⁹As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! (Galatians 1.6-9).

Note that Paul wrote this after the Council of Jerusalem. In the council, Peter had declared,

¹⁰Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are” (Acts 15.10-11).

Paul could not have written such strong words until after the matter of Paul’s gospel of faith + ∅ had been settled at the Council. After much dissent, Peter finally spoke up and  made the astonishing declaration that Jews were now to be saved as Gentiles. From the Scriptural record we learn that few Gentiles were being saved under the ministry of Peter and the Eleven. Such who were, were commanded to be circumcised and keep the Mosaic Law. In other words, they had to live like Jews. That is why the believing Jews at the Council had been adamant. In all fairness to them, they were right. No one had told them differently. We find no record of God telling the Jews that they no longer had to keep the Mosaic Law.

But the risen Lord had revealed to Paul, not Peter or the Eleven, that those who believed Paul’s gospel were not under the Law. Paul’s gospel was completely different. Paul’s doctrine was a person was saved by faith alone and that the believer in his gospel was not under the Mosaic Law in any form or fashion. To the Jew, this was almost incomprehensible. They had been under the authority of the Mosaic Law for 1500 years. Jesus Himself ministered under the Law. But Peter, under the direction of the Holy Spirit recognized Paul was right. He recognized that Paul’s gospel had superseded the “gospel of the kingdom” even though he found these new truths difficult to comprehend even at the end of his life (2 Peter 3.14-16). ²

Life is a Gift

God is the source of all life He alone gives it. It is a gift. We cannot earn it and we clearly do not deserve it. God owes man nothing (Romans 4.2, 4-5).

God is sovereign. He makes the rules. We either come His way or not at all (Matthew 7.13-14; John 14.6). If God declared one could be saved by doing 10 jumping jacks, a person who trusted God would do 10 jumping jacks. God has changed the requirements for salvation over time but the means of salvation has remained the same: faith.

At this present time we are under the administration of Paul’s gospel (1 Corinthians 15.1-4). Salvation is obtained by faith + ∅. Paul wrote:

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3.23-24).

⁴ Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. ⁵But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness (Romans 4.4-5).

¹⁵But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. ¹⁶ The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. ¹⁷For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ (Romans 5.15-17).

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6.23).

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ not as a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2.8-9).

These passages are so easy a child can understand them. They are crystal clear in their meaning. Salvation is a gift given by God simply by trusting Him: that He died for our sins and rose from the dead. If one trusts God about the work Christ did on the cross for him and rose from the dead a person is save. Period. It is that simple.

¹The exception is, of course, Abraham. Abraham was saved without works, that is, by faith alone. This is why Paul chose him as an example of his doctrine of faith (Romans 4.1-5).

²God prepared Peter for this critical moment long ago (12-16 years earlier). God, in His sovereignty, foresaw this crisis Paul would face. For that reason He had orchestrated Peter to visit the Gentile Cornelius. Peter obey God and traveled to the house of Cornelius– dragging his feet the entire way. While Peter was just getting warmed up in his message, the Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius and the others with him. Peter and his six Jewish friends were amazed. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way! These Gentiles had received the Holy Spirit without out baptism, works, Law-keeping, circumcision, etc. (Acts 10.44-48). It was a faith + ∅ event. Peter remembered this (just at the right moment) and it caused him to side with Paul.