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deepen the sense of sin and to sharpen the conviction that salvation could be expected only
from the grace of God. The essence of real piety was ever-increasingly seen to consist in a
confident trust in the God of salvation. While the Old Testament clearly stresses the fear of the
Lord, a large number of expressions, such as hoping, trusting, seeking refuge in God, looking to
Him, relying on Him, fixing the heart on Him, and cleaving to Him — make it abundantly evident
that this fear is not a craven but a child-like, reverent fear, and emphasize the necessity of that
loving self-commitment to God which is the essence of saving faith. Even in the period of the
law faith is distinctly soteriological, looking to the Messianic salvation. It is a trusting in the God
of salvation, and a firm reliance on His promises for the future.
2. IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
When the Messiah came in fulfilment of the prophecies, bringing
the hoped-for salvation, it became necessary for the vehicles of God’s revelation to direct God’s
people to the person of their Redeemer. This was all the more necessary in view of the fact that
the fulfilment came in a form which many did not expect, and which apparently did not
correspond with the promise.
a. In the Gospels.
The demand for faith in Jesus as the Redeemer, promised and hoped for,
appeared as something characteristic of the new age. “To believe” meant to become a
Christian. This demand seemed to create a gulf between the old dispensation and the new. The
beginning of the latter is even called “the coming of faith,” Gal. 3:23,25. It is the characteristic
thing of the Gospels that in them Jesus is constantly offering Himself as the object of faith, and
that in connection with the highest concerns of the soul. The Gospel of John stresses the higher
aspects of this faith more than the Synoptics.
b. In the Acts.
In the Acts of the Apostles faith is required in the same general sense. By the
preaching of the apostles men are brought to the obedience of faith in Christ; and this faith
becomes the formative principle of the new community. Different tendencies developed in the
Church and gave rise to the different modes of dealing with faith that became apparent in the
writings of the New Testament.
c. In the Epistle of James.
James had to rebuke the Jewish tendency to conceive of the faith
that was well pleasing to God as a mere intellectual assent to the truth, a faith that did not yield
appropriate fruit. His idea of the faith that justifies does not differ from that of Paul, but he
stresses the fact that this faith must manifest itself in good works. If it does not, it is a dead
faith, and is, in fact, non-existent.
d. In the Epistles of Paul.
Paul had to contend particularly with the ingrained legalism of Jewish
thought. The Jew boasted of the righteousness of the law. Consequently, the apostle had to
vindicate the place of faith as the only instrument of salvation. In doing this, he naturally dwelt