Is Faith Belief in Doctrines?

CAN THE HEATHEN BE SAVED?

    How about those who lived and died from Adam to Christ? How about all those through the ages who were not Hebrews? What did they have to do to gain eternal life? Were they without hope because they were not Abraham's seed? -- Benton, Arkansas

    These questions, which surely disturb the mind of every Christian at one time or another (Were the poor American Indians, who had no opportunity to know Christ, all lost?), are best answered by raising still another question, Is faith a matter of believing particular doctrines? The particulars may run all the way from whether an instrument may accompany the singing in Christian worship and whether the Scriptures are inerrantly inspired to the virgin birth of Christ and the resurrection of the body. Does faith consist in belief of such doctrines, or does faith sometimes include an acceptance of such doctrines? Do such doctrines grow out of faith or are they by definition the meaning of faith?

    I submit the view that faith is not as much a matter of mind (an intellectual acceptance of doctrinal propositions) as it is a matter of heart. Rom. 10:10 indicates this: "With the heart one believes unto righteousness." This cannot be a faith with meritorious efficacy -- such as believing the right things or even in the right Person -- for righteousness is given only by God's grace. Neither faith nor works can merit salvation. So declares the apostle in Rom. 3:28: "We conclude that one is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." Here "the deeds of the law" are all those works that the law enjoins, to be performed perfectly as the law requires. Just as one cannot be justified by a perfect response to law, so one cannot be justified by believing the right doctrines. Faith is something besides all this.

    The faith that justifies in Rom. 3:28 cannot be a belief in right doctrines, for such faith would be no different from law. Only God's graciousness can make us right with him, not perfect lawkeeping or perfect doctrine. When we see faith as "a sincere disposition to believe what God hath made known," to quote MacKnight, we can better understand Paul's message in Romans. The apostle does plainly say in Rom. 2:13 that "the doers of the law will be justified,'' which appears to contradict his insistence that "by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight" (Rom. 3:20). We can only conclude that "the law" that justifies in Rom. 2:13 is different from the law of works in Rom. 3:20.

    The problem is resolved by understanding that the law that justifies in Rom. 2:13 is "the law of faith" in Rom. 3:27. That verse shows that being right with God cannot be a matter of our boasting -- that we are neither good enough or right enough to merit salvation. It is neither by deeds of any law or by a right understanding (faith) of any set of doctrines that justifies us. It is by faith or "the law of faith." Faith in this context means a sincere seeking after God, a humble, obedient spirit in the face of God's will as one understands that will. We also have the apostle referring to "the spirit of faith" (2 Cor. 4:13).

    I suggest that we have an answer to the above questions when we understand the meaning of "the spirit of faith." In that verse Paul quotes from Psalms 116 where David amidst all his affliction could still say, "I believed therefore I spoke." The essence of faith in that psalm is "I will call upon God as long as I live" (verse 2), which is a good definition of "the spirit of faith." The spirit of faith may be in one who does not have a covenant relationship with God as the Jews had and as Christians now have. The American Indian, ignorant of God in terms of the revelation we have, might nonetheless call upon God, according to the light he has, as long as he lives. And that psalm promises that when one calls upon God in the spirit of faith God inclines His ear unto him.

    Since God is no respecter of persons and since "in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him" (Acts 10:34-35), we may conclude that there are those among the heathen who have this spirit of faith. We may conclude that fearing God and working righteousness in this passage is the same as "the doers of the law" in Rom. 2:13. Or it may be called "the law of faith" that saves.

    But the object of that faith may be different, depending on circumstances. By the circumstances of birth the Jewish people were given a special revelation, "the law," and by circumstance of birth most of us in the Western world know about Christ. The object of faith for the American Indian or an Indonesian villager may be what he sees in the testimony of nature or in the witness of his own heart. He has never heard of Christ and he is not a recipient of "the law." But even if the object, by circumstance, is different there can be the same "spirit of faith." The Scriptures teach that God accepts the person from any nation or any tongue that calls upon Him in sincere faith, who fears him and does what is right ("the law" such as he has in nature) according to the light he has.

    Does not the apostle say this in Rom. 2:14: "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts." What do we know, we who are blessed with an abundance of revelation in the form of the Holy Scriptures, about the law that is written on human hearts? In that passage the apostle goes on to say that "their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them." The law within, the conscience, may accuse or excuse, depending on whether or not one has "the spirit of faith" that seeks after the God that he may know little about.

    Is this not evident in the story of Abram of the Chaldees, whose faith was imputed unto him for righteousness? He knew little about the God that he believed in. He certainly had neither law nor Scripture. He was in a world of heathenism, but he believed in the One who called him, and "it was reckoned unto him for righteousness." Then there is Rahab, who was not only a heathen but a prostitute as well, but still Heb. 11:31 assures us that "By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace."

    In Acts 14:16 Paul acknowledges that in bygone generations God allowed the nations to walk in their own ways ("times of ignorance" he calls it in Acts 17:30), and yet he says even of those times: "Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness."

    If God has never left himself without witness, whether to a Taiwanese peasant or an Alaskan Eskimo, we only need to ask if there are not some who respond to that witness. Paul gives us the answer in Acts 17:26-27:

    He made of one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.

    Seek the Lord and grope after him! This is the essence of religion and it is the essence of faith. Men find God by seeking him. This is "the spirit of faith," even when it lacks those doctrines that we believe only because we have greater light.

    This view of faith will save us from the serious error of supposing that we are "faithful" because we believe all the right doctrines, even the right doctrines about Christ. Believing even in the resurrection of Christ does not make us faithful. We believe in the resurrection because we are faithful. We are faithful only when we seek after God with all our hearts. All who do that are "acceptable to him,'' as the Bible puts it, even if they are not yet Jews (Old Testament) or Christians (New Testament). When we "grope after him in hopes that we might find him" God puts us on radar and brings us in for a safe landing, even if it is ever so slowly. But we are all at different positions on the radar screen, and what is important, even if we are already baptized into Christ and a "good" Christian, is that we keep seeking him with sincere hearts. Seeking after God and finding him does not end when we reach a particular plateau. It involves eternity itself, for even when we see God face to face he will still be the God who hides himself. We will seek him in faith, hope, and love throughout eternity, as I Cor. 13:13 indicates.

    To use such imagery as God having people on radar who have the spirit of faith may be consistent with the vision Paul experienced in Corinth, according to Acts 18:9-10: "Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, 'Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you, for I have many people in this city.'"

    There were "many people" in Corinth who were seeking after God or who had the spirit of faith, even though they were pagans, and the Lord wanted them to hear the gospel from his apostle. He wanted to bring them further. But we can hardly conclude that they would have been lost in hell had they not heard the gospel. The Lord would hardly refer to them as "my people" and yet consider them as within Satan's domain. Everyone in Corinth was not so described, but many of them were in some special way "my people," even though they were not yet Christians and did not yet enjoy a covenant relationship with God. May we not conclude that those that did not get to hear Paul and obey the gospel were still God's people?

    In his resourceful book, The Church, the brilliant Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng deals with this question of whether the heathen can be saved by quoting from a decision reached in Vatican II. The quotation deserves our consideration:

    Those also can attain to everlasting salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek Cod and, moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does divine Providence deny the help necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God, but who strive to live a good life, thanks to His grace. (p. 316)

    In this context the Vatican council drew upon Acts 17:25-28, and stressed the fact that God gives life, breath, and every other gift to all men, and that it is in him that we live and move and have our very being, and that he is not far from any of us. The divines also saw significance in 1 Tim. 2:4, which assures us that God wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

    We may conclude with an important distinction: the Scriptures never condemn an unbeliever; they condemn only the disbeliever. There is a vast difference between the person who does not believe because he has never heard and the one who has heard and has rejected the message. Jesus may have had such a distinction in mind when he said; "If I had not come and spoken to them they would not have had sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin" (John 15:22).

    But it is here that both the world and the church are in deep trouble: there is so much disbelief in the face of overwhelming evidence, both in nature and in Scripture. The church is not immune to this the greatest of sins. Disbelief is the church's besetting sin (Heb. 12:1). But whenever one in the world or in the church sincerely seeks after God and hungers and thirsts for righteousness we believe he will find God and be accepted by God. So says the Scriptures: "To this one will I look, declares the Lord, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word" (Is. 66:2). — the Editor

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    I do not think that a resolute dealing with our divisions will come except in the context of a quite new acceptance on the part of all the Churches of the obligation to bring the gospel to every creature; nor do I think that the world will believe that Gospel until it sees more evidence of its power to make us one. These two tasks -- mission and unity -- must be prosecuted together and in indissoluble relation to one another. -- Leslie Newbigin