True repentance is a gift of God; true believing, even more so, is a gift of God.
1. “Faith...is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).
Faith that leads to salvation cannot be generated by man; it is given by God. God imparts faith into man through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit reveals the Lord Jesus and His redemption to man (Gal. 1:16), causing him to see and know the Lord Jesus and His redemption, faith is automatically generated in man. Belief in the heart is based on a vision in the spirit, and such a vision always comes from the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Without the revelation of the Holy Spirit, the human spirit cannot see, and when man’s spirit fails to see, his heart will not believe. Faith comes from the revelation of the Holy Spirit, and it is given to man by the Holy Spirit’s revelation.
2. “The grace of our Lord superabounded with faith” (1 Tim. 1:14).
God imparts faith into us because His grace is exceedingly abundant, not because we have any virtue or strong points. His grace is so abundant that we now possess a living faith unto salvation, even though we had sinned by rejecting Him, being unwilling and unable to believe.
3. “Have been allotted faith equally precious as ours” (2 Pet. 1:1).
Since faith is a gift of God, faith is allotted and does not come from us. Peter called the faith that has been allotted to us through God’s exceedingly abundant grace “precious.” Faith is precious. It enables us to believe in what we could never believe in, and when it enters into us, it is obtained once and for all and will never leave us. It is impossible for any man to believe in the mystery and centrality of the gospel of God. According to human reasoning, it is not believable that the Lord Jesus is God incarnated, was born of a virgin, died to propitiate man’s sins, rose from the dead, ascended into the heavens, is seated at the right hand of God, and will return one day. But when this precious faith enters into our being, we can and must believe. The more we believe, the more we feel pleasant and comfortable. Once we obtain this precious faith, it can never be lost. Once we obtain this precious faith, we will never disbelieve. It is impossible for us to truly not believe, even though we may occasionally deny Him, because the precious faith given to us is in us.
Faith has an object. We cannot pay attention simply to faith and neglect the object of faith. If the object of faith is wrong, it will be difficult for our faith to be proper. Hence, we must be clear and accurate concerning the object of faith so that we know what to believe in.
1. “Believes into the Son”; “Believe into the Son of God” (John 3:36; 9:35, see also v. 38).
God is triune—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father is the source, the Son is the expression, and the Spirit is the transmission. God who dwells in unapproachable light is the Father (1 Tim. 6:16; James 1:17); God expressed is the Son (John 1:18; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3); and God coming into man is the Spirit (1 John 3:24). The Son is God expressed. The expressed God is the very Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord being the Son of God means that He is the expression of God and is God expressed. He is God (John 1:1), and He is one with God (10:30). To be manifested among men He became flesh and took the form of a man to be the Son of Man (1:14; Phil. 2:6-7; Luke 19:10). Although He became the Son of Man, His expression was that of the Son of God. The Son of God is the One whom we should believe in. He alone should be the object of our faith.
2. “Believe on the Lord Jesus” (Acts 16:31).
We do not believe in a religion, even Christianity, nor do we believe in a certain teaching, not even a teaching about Christ. Rather, we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who is both God and man. The object of our faith is not a dead religion, that is, dead Christianity, or a dead doctrine, that is, a dead teaching concerning Christ, but the living Lord Jesus, the living Christ. Although Christ is Jesus the man, He is also the Lord and God. He is called Lord because He is God; He is called Jesus (meaning “Jehovah the Savior”) because He became a man. He is God and man. We believe on the Lord Jesus who is both God and man by receiving Him as our Savior through faith, thus entering into Him to be joined to Him.
3. “Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31).
While Christ is the title of the Lord Jesus related to His office, Son of God is the title of His person. With reference to His office, He is the Christ of God; in relation to His person, He is the Son of God. As the Son of God, He expresses God and declares God; as the Christ of God, He came to accomplish God’s will and to fulfill God’s plan. We must believe that He is both the Christ of God and the Son of God. Although His name is Jesus, He is also the Christ who accomplished God’s will and fulfilled God’s plan. Although He became the Son of Man, He is also the Son of God who expresses and declares God. Indeed, He became Jesus to be our Savior, yet we must believe that He is the Christ who fulfilled God’s will and completed His plan. Although He came to die for us to redeem us as the Son of Man, we must believe that He is the Son of God who expresses and declares the very God Himself. He became Jesus and the Son of Man to be our Savior so that He might deliver us, but in order to obtain His salvation and life, we must believe that He is the Christ of God and the Son of God.
In different times and ways the Bible repeatedly shows and leads man to believe that Jesus is the Christ of God and the Son of God (Acts 5:42; 9:22; 18:5, 28; 9:20; Rom. 1:4; Matt. 16:16; John 11:27). Satan endeavors to keep man from believing that the Lord Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God (9:22; 10:36; Matt. 26:63). If we consider that the Lord Jesus is just a man, we cannot receive salvation. Whoever thinks that Jesus is merely a son of man cannot obtain His life. We must first believe that the Lord Jesus is the Christ of God before we can obtain His salvation. This is because He accomplished God’s redemption according to God’s will and plan. God imparts salvation to us in Christ (Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:5; 1 Cor. 1:30). To receive His life, we must believe that Jesus, the Son of Man, is also the Son of God because “this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1 John 5:11-12).
4. “Believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead” (Rom. 10:9).
The Bible does not require us to believe in the death of the Lord Jesus but in His resurrection. His death is acknowledged by all, yet no one can believe in His resurrection without the revelation of the Holy Spirit. His death redeemed us from our sins objectively; His resurrection imparts life into us subjectively and makes us one with Him. Without this subjective union, His objective redemption would have no impact on us. Therefore, in order to be saved, we must believe that God has raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. Without resurrection, our faith is vain, and we are still in our sins (1 Cor. 15:14, 17). For this cause, when the early apostles preached the gospel, they especially preached concerning the Lord’s resurrection, because they were witnesses of His resurrection (Acts 1:22; 2:32; 3:15; 4:33).
5. “Believe in the gospel”; “Christ died for our sins... was buried, and...has been raised” (Mark 1:15; 1 Cor. 15:3-4).
Only by believing in the gospel, not in some common teaching, can a person be saved. The gospel is not a common teaching; it specifically speaks of Christ dying for our sins, being buried, and rising again. If Christ and the redemption accomplished through His death and resurrection are not the center of a teaching, it is not the gospel and cannot lead one to believe and be saved. Only the gospel that speaks of Christ and the redemption He accomplished through His death and resurrection can save people. We should believe in this gospel as the object of our faith. The Holy Spirit will reveal Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection to us in this gospel. Through this gospel we know Christ and His redemption and are led to believe in Him. To believe in Christ and His redemption is to believe the proper gospel and is the proper believing.
6. “Not believed in the testimony which God has testified concerning His Son” (1 John 5:10-12).
God gave His Son to accomplish redemption for us so that we may have eternal life. Then, by means of the Bible, He testified concerning His Son and His accomplishments. The testimony of God concerning His Son is the words in the Bible that deal with the person and work of Christ. The Lord Jesus and all that He has accomplished are in these words of witness, the Bible, for us to believe and receive. If we do not believe these words of testimony, we cannot believe in the Son of God and in the accomplishments contained in the testimony. For us to believe in the Son of God and in what He has accomplished, we must believe the words of God’s testimony. The moment we believe in these words of witness, we obtain the Son of God and His accomplishments.
Believing in the Lord Jesus is not according to human imagination, presumption, and tradition but according to God’s testimony. We do not believe in a Savior of our imagination, presumption, and tradition but in the Savior of whom God has borne testimony. Man presumes and promotes the thought that great effort must be exerted to rely on Jesus, to beseech Him for deliverance, and to look to Him for the gift of salvation, as if He has not already accomplished salvation. This is not God’s testimony. God witnesses in His Word, the Bible, that His Son has already accomplished the work of salvation and life-impartation. The only thing that is required of man is to receive God’s Son and His accomplishments, according to God’s witness and words. Believing in Jesus does not require an exercise of human strength to trust and rely on Him. Rather, it is simply to receive Him and what He has accomplished by faith, according to God’s Word.
The testimony of God concerning His Son is that “God gave to us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (vv. 11-12). Man must believe this testimony to gain the Son of God and the life that is in Him.
7. “Believed the Scripture” (John 2:22; see also 5:46-47).
One who desires to believe in the Lord Jesus must believe in the Scriptures, for the Scriptures testify concerning Him (v. 39). Moreover, the Lord Jesus is the living Word of God (1:1). The Scriptures are the words written by God (2 Tim. 3:16). The living Word of God, the Lord Jesus, is the reality of the Scriptures, the written Word of God. The written Word of God, the Scriptures, is the revelation of the Lord Jesus, the living Word of God. Thus, a man cannot believe the Scriptures if he does not believe in the Lord Jesus; likewise, one who does not believe the Scriptures cannot believe in the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus and the Scriptures are inseparable. To believe in Him, one must believe the Scriptures. A “Christian” who does not believe the Scriptures is an unbeliever, a false Christian.