One issue the church must answer is what it means to trust in Christ. This is a foundational doctrine of Christian religion. Many wrongly assume “trust” means complete confession of Christ as one’s savior. Indeed, confession is an open acknowledgment that we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23) and need Christ’s atoning work in one’s heart (1 Pet. 1:19). Yet, salvation goes beyond a sinner’s awareness and confession. When God regenerates a person, He provides a grace of trust.
Regeneration is the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit where He transforms a sinner’s hardened, dead heart into a living heart of a believer who trusts, loves, and obeys God (WCF SC Q.30). Regeneration is what makes new life in Christ possible. When God regenerates the heart, He grants the graces of repentance and faith (Ezek. 36:25-27; Acts 20:21; John 3:1-9; Titus 3:4-6; James 1:18). Sinclair Ferguson rightly says, “Repentance and faith have been called the twin pillars of the Christian life because they are each required in order to convert” (Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction, 70). Grace implies a gift unearned and undeserved. Faith and trust are used interchangeably throughout Scripture.
Scripture defines faith, or trust, as confident and firm assurance in God. In the Old Testament there are two Hebrew words that are translated as faith. The first word is emun (Deut. 32:20; Prov. 13:17, 14:15, 20:6; Isa. 26:2) and, according to Strong’s Concordance means “faithfulness.” The other Hebrew word is emunah (found in forty-eight places from Ex. 17:12 and Hab. 2:4), and Strong’s concordance translates as firmness, steadfastness, and fidelity. Both words derives from the root aman. Aman is used in the three verb tenses this way: to uphold, to be faithful (Qal); to be firm, and in a moral sense to be trustworthy (Niphal); and to regard as firm, trustworthy, or to place confidence in (Hiphil). Therefore, English translations transcribe aman with words such as established, confirm, trustworthy, and support. So, one can conclude that faith means a steady and firm trust in what one believes.
In the New Testament, Hebrews 11:1 provides the definition of faith, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The Greek word used here is pistis, and Strong’s Concordance translates pistis as belief, trust, confidence, and fidelity.The root word of pistis is peitho, which means to persuade, have confidence, and come to trust. There are over two hundred instances of pistis or a variation of pistis in the New Testament. When one puts the Hebrew and Greek words and definitions together to see the biblically theological golden thread, for Christians to have faith in Christ for salvation means to confidently believe in Him, to be assured and convicted that He exists even though He cannot be seen, and to steadily trust His sovereignty–His Lordship–in one’s life.
What is evident is that faith is a gift that must be received and exercised. The Westminster Confession of Faith Shorter Catechism asks and answers this way: Question #86, “What is faith in Jesus Christ?” Answer, “Faith is Jesus Christ is the saving grace, by which we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation, as He is offered to us in the Gospel” (WCF, Fortress ed., 1982 – my emphasis). Saving faith must have an object, and that object is Christ alone. Mere faith, apart from Christ, does not save a person. Gordon Reed puts it this way, “Jesus Christ is our Savior and therefore faith must rest in Him. He is not only the author of our faith; He is the object of it as well. The Catechism is very careful to weave the word faith around the word grace, for the two may never be separated” (Gordon Reed, Westminster Daily Devotional, August 20).
It is pertinent to recognize the catechism use of the words receive and rest. Receive means more than belief. It means to accept Christ’s work on the cross and as one’s personal Savior. It also implies relationship where we receive the relationship Christ offers to be one’s Lord (Isa. 33:22).
To rest in Christ is to say there is only one way of salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Phil. 3:1-21). He is the only Savior, and He is the only one any person will ever need. A regenerated person commits their life into Christ’s hands now and even to raise them from the dead. Horatius Bonar says, “It is ‘believing’ from first to last. We begin, we go on, we end in faith. The faith that justifies is the faith that overcomes (1 John 5:4). By faith we obtain the ‘good report’ both with God and with man. By faith we receive forgiveness; by faith we live; by faith we work, and endure, and suffer; by faith we win the crown––a crown of righteousness, which shall be ours in the day of the appearing of Him who is our righteousness” (Horatius Bonar, Christ Is All, 150).
Finally, faith is an assent to the truth, or to the persuasion of the mind that something is true. And the primary element of faith is trust. Charles Hodge discusses this in his Systematic Theology section, “The Psychological Nature of Faith.” Hodge explains, “From all this it appears that the primary idea of faith is trust. The idea of truth is that which is trustworthy; that which sustains our expectations, which does not disappoint, because it really is what it is assumed or declared to be. It is opposed to the deceitful, the false, the unreal, the empty, and the worthless. To regard a thing as true, is to regard it as worthy of trust, as being what it purports to be” (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology:3, 43). Therefore, faith is trusting in Christ as the object of salvation, receiving and resting in Him alone for that salvation, because God has testified Him as the Savior (1 John 5:10-11). Whoever trusts God’s Word, Christ for salvation, has set to one’s seal that God is true, and is a child of God.
Andrews PCA 