patrick wrote:B. W. wrote:patrick wrote:I more or less consider myself Christian, but I don't have faith so much as hope.
Curious on people's sources of faith.
How would you define faith?
Basically, that hope becomes faith when plausibility becomes probability.
I know a lot of people think "faith" implies something blind or willfully assumed despite evidence -- I don't.
But I
am talking specifically of faith in the ineffable -- of the nature of God and the divinity of Jesus. Of things that even the evidence for them, it's questionable it's really evidence of such. To use crochet's example, if you flip a light switch you know one way or another that either it can turn on a light or it can't. And since it doesn't just sometimes correspond with a light coming on, but always, it'd be pretty absurd to suggest the light just keeps happening to turn on. But there's no clear litmus test like that with the things I'm talking about.
So what I am hearing you say is that your definition of faith is
ineffable and thus cannot be defined clearly.
The concept of faith from the ancient Hebrew perspective of the Old Testament and New Testament era of Jesus and the apostles is not the same as in our current modern times.
The idea of faith back then was based upon attaching oneself to one who redeemed you, saved you, or in how one learned of the good reputation of a craftsman and then joins himself to him to learn the trade of the craftsman. Faith holds in its meaning the principle of a bond servant to carry out the will of God, one step at a time. Paul uses that phrases in his epistles.
Faith involves attaching oneself to one who frees you due to the act of the one setting you free. One's see the act - the redemption, that is not earned or deserved and then commit one's life to serve and learn from the one who set you free to learn their trade and carry on the will/work/trade of the one who set you free.
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. When he heard God and his promises he attached himself to follow God and obey. Despite Abraham's shortfalls and foibles, he learned from these that God is faithful to him and fully of true grace. Abraham attached himself and his family to God and went on a journey in life that reflected this attachment, no matter what. That is faith. In other words, God proved himself trustworthy and true and from this Abraham relied upon each step he took in mortal life.
In the modern church world, this type and kind of faith is not taught on much anymore. Faith is presented as the means to get one's gets from God, or that man's works and ideas are to be trusted more than God's works and words. Faith is reduced to a mental exercise and not as a way of life of commitment to the one who sets free. Faith also is seldom taught as a journey where one develops a personal relationship with God himself who trains and equips one to carry on the trade of the master craftsman, God: despite the bible's clear teaching that we are predestined to be conformed into his image of Jesus.
God proves himself faithful by attaching himself to mankind, by sharing in our own humanity. He paid the redemption price of death to set us free from servitude to the world system, sin, etc. The phrases Son of God and Son of Man both reflect how God, the living Word (second person of the Godhead Trinity), attached himself to humanity in order to save those who freely attach themselves to him. He paid the price of revealing human sin, and our wrath upon his own self in order to also take the wrath of God the Father of life in our place. - Note Philippians 2:5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 -
God's wrath is often not understood or clearly seen how it operates. First God's wrath reveals why there is a need for such wrath which is due to forsaking God and choosing other god's such as the god of self or paganism (example Jer 16:12). His wrath begins with warnings to return. He reveals the nature of how folks abandon him and his guidance and the consequences. He exposes the slipperiness of those who attach themselves to the ways of dysfunctions as the means and purpose in life. In others words he makes it plain - that he will render to them what they sow. They abandoned him so he abandons them to their own devises.
God's wrath also sorts out the chaff from the wheat. Those that turn back to God receive grace and those that will not are fully exposed and set apart for the fury of God's just wrath consisting of utter total justified abandonment to one’s enemies. In the afterlife, it is further solidified by banishment to a place of one’s own making by reaping what one has sown, eternally. This principle is found in God's dealing with ancient Israel and those nations who forget God Who Is and sees and knows and takes account.
God's wrath grants warnings of its coming in signs, wonders, and word. If you again look at what Jesus went through, you begin to see how he was turned over to God's enemies and how he fully bore God's wrath to pay our death penalty. How He exposed the slipperiness that humanity uses to justify abandoning God and his ways. How in God's wrath, God calls out to return to him before it is too late. In fact, one sees the love of God seeking to regather a people back to himself justly: sorting out the wheat from the chaff. You see from the prospective of the cross (and Resurrection) of Jesus Christ the oneness of God Essence crying out in the full unity of His triune nature to escape the wrath to come. < aside - has our nation and the west being turned over to our own devises? Hosea 8:1,2,3,4 >
In this, we can trust in the Lord who is faithful - who attached himself to humanity - to cleanse us - give us another chance - who shows to what extremes that he will not abandon those who return to their senses by accepting His work to expose sin, and bear wrath on our behalf. Then by indwelling those who come to him to release them of the due of sin, of abandoning, betraying, mocking, of hubris, rejecting, slippery ways... after they see this in themselves by what he did to expose these things at work within us, enslaving us to do these things to others, our own selves, friends, strangers, and God himself. The world is a mess, isn't it? How it is always slippery justifying abandonment, rejection, betrayal, etc?
However, when one attaches his or her self to God. He attaches to them by indwelling them in order to teach them His ways, will, plans, purposes so we carry on his trade which is defined in Isaiah 61:1,2,3,4 during our mortal life's sojourn.
That is faith: faith attaching oneself to follow one who sets you free by proof of an act of love so profound that I cannot fully comprehend why he would even bother with saving the wretches we are.
Another point often missed in the OT is how the prophets bore the wrath of man in order to expose the nature of sin that God sent them to warn people about. In this light Hebrews 11:32-40 makes more sense.
Biblical faith is not about intellectual assenting in agreement, rather it is a relational attaching one's self to the one sent to rescue you, Jesus Christ.
Sadly, for much of modern Christendom, this truth is not spoken much anymore or taught and the fruit of it is clearly seen...
patrick wrote:crochet1949 wrote:My question would be -- on what basis do you consider yourself to Be Christian.
Not sure if this was meant towards me or BW, but I've sought explanations for subtle aspects of my inner experience and in coming upon Christianity I found it to be surprisingly plausible, to the point that I've begun study of scripture and occasionally even pray. What I mean is, even if it weren't true I'd still agree with a lot of its message -- it seems "right" to me.
Philippians 1:6,
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect (complete) it until the day of Christ Jesus... NASB
1 Corinthians 1:9,
God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord... NASB
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