\n\nThe Faith Of God\u2019s Elect
Peter L. Meney
Faith is precious. The Bible tells us so. Yet, not the bare existence of
faith. In that sense, faith, in and of itself, is meaningless. I doubt
there is a person on the face of this earth who does not claim to have
faith in something or other, even if it is simply their own opinion.
Similarly, the term \u2018people of faith\u2019 has become an all-purpose
description to gather together every flavour of religion and all manner
of weird and wonderful notions. Christians, Jews, Muslims and
flat-earthers are part of the \u2018faith community\u2019 but they are not all
going to heaven.
The Bible says the just shall live by faith and the faith by which the
just live is called by Paul the faith of God\u2019s elect. There is natural
faith and there is the faith of Christ. There is faith borne of human
wisdom and faith from above that is spiritual and created by God the
Holy Spirit. Thus when the Lord Jesus Christ says, \u201cThy faith hath saved
thee, go in peace\u201d, it is the faith of Christ graciously gifted, the
faith of God\u2019s elect that is in view, exercised in humble worship and
reliance upon the Saviour.
James Wells, a London preacher of the nineteenth century, once said,
\u201cFor myself, I believe that the substituting of mere mental and moral
conversion\u2014this mere natural faith for the faith of God\u2019s elect\u2014I
believe that there are more souls deceived by this doctrine than by any
other found in all Protestant Christendom\u201d.
Wells is speaking of the great error of manmade religion. Hell will be
populated by damned souls who earnestly followed their creed or
confession, obeyed their preacher\u2019s teachings and with his (or her)
connivance imagined themselves fit for heaven. In their heads they
believed, by their conduct they observed all the norms of custom and
practice their church required, and yet they are not saved. What
confusion will follow those words of Christ in that day, \u201cDepart from
me, I never knew you.\u201d
The faith of God\u2019s elect is belief in the being of God, and trust in His
promises as revealed to the church in the person and redemptive work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. JEHOVAH, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, has
revealed Himself as \u201cforgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin\u201d and
giving eternal life to the church in Christ Jesus. Faith is giving
credit to this Divine testimony, and relying upon God\u2019s faithfulness for
the fulfilment of it.
Not the glory and wonder of the promise; but the glory, wonder, and
faithfulness of the Promiser is the proper object of faith. To believe,
and rest in the almighty Promiser and His assurances in Christ, the
Godman, is faith. \u201cAcknowledging of the truth which is after godliness\u201d
is faith.
The possession of the faith of God\u2019s elect and the exercise of it in
this world is the gift of God. \u201cUnto you,\u201d says Paul, \u201cit is given to
believe\u201d (Philippians 1:29). And every truly awakened and regenerated
believer finds reason, to cry out, as the apostle did to Christ, \u201cLord,
increase our faith\u201d (Luke 17:5).\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Faith Of God\u2019s ElectPeter L. MeneyFaith is precious. The Bible tells us so. Yet, not the bare existence of faith. In that sense, faith, in and of itself, is meaningless. I doubt there is a person on the face of this earth who does not claim to have faith in something or other, even if it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-peter-meney","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5301,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300\/revisions\/5301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}