Pt. 18 LBCF Chapter 14 Of Saving Faith

Chapter 14 of Saving Faith. I hope you can see now why saving faith comes after sanctification.

Hopefully you can see that now. This chapter has three paragraphs. Faith is an essential element in salvation.

We know that without faith it is impossible to please God. And the confession is closely aligned with the other major Reformed confessions on this topic.

This is one of the big differences between the Reformed churches and those who are either dispensational or Arminian, etc.

So chapter 14 is a logical chapter to expound on saving faith after having studied sanctification.

So part one is the source. Paragraph 1a tells us who the personal agent involved.

The grace of faith believed to the saving of their souls is the work of the

Spirit of Christ in their hearts and is wrought ordinarily by the ministry of the Word. So here, personal agent.

How is a person given the grace of faith? Through the work of the

Spirit of Christ. So the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls.

Why? Because you've been sanctified, set apart, your heart's been regenerated. That's all the work of the

Spirit of Christ. Second half, the instrumental means involved, wrought by the ministry of the

Word. How? Through the Holy Spirit ministering the Word to your heart.

By which also, and now notice again, the confession goes right into this, the administration of baptism and the

Lord's Supper, means of grace. Prayer and other means appointed of God, it is increased and strengthened.

Remember, saving faith is effective faith, but it's not necessarily a mature faith.

And one of the things that we need to understand is, just as we have to grow in sanctification, we have to grow in faith.

When we get to chapter 18 of the confession, chapter 18 is a fairly lengthy, one of the longer chapters, and the title of that chapter is

Of the Assurance of Faith and Salvation. And so it's important that our faith is growing, and that's why the ministry of the

Word is so, so crucial, and the administration of the elements, prayer, and other appointed means, it's strengthened and increased.

Okay, again that just makes perfect sense if we look at the chapter just before it on sanctification.

Paragraph 2a says, basically it is, saving faith embraces the infallibility and excellency of the

Scriptures. All right, by this faith a Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the

Word of, for the authority of God Himself. What are they saying here? If you want your faith to increase, you have to accept the ministry of the

Word as being infallible. Think about it. Suppose we didn't have the doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture, and the preacher's up there preaching, and then at the end of it he says, this may or may not be true.

You know, think about it. But the preacher can go up, and you know if you've been in this church any length of time, you know that when whoever preaches, whether it's me, one of the other elders, one of the other men, guest speakers they have coming in, one thing that you're going to get is you're going to get dogmatic preaching saying that this is what you must do, this is what the

Scripture says, and this is what it means, and this is what you must do in response to it. You've actually heard me stand up and command people to repent.

How can I do that? Because the Word does. Scripture teaches that all men everywhere ought to repent, so I can stand up there as a minister of the gospel and say, if you're here today and you don't know

Jesus Christ, I command you to repent, and if you don't, you're in violation of the

Word of God again. Why? Because the Word of God is infallible.

Not because I'm infallible, but because the Word of God is infallible. Okay, so this is an important element.

If you don't understand and you don't believe that the Word of God is infallible, that it's inerrant, that it is inspired, that means

God breathed. You're going to struggle with your faith, okay?

And also apprehends the excellency thereof above all other writings and things in the world.

In other words, if science comes up and somebody writes a treatise and it contradicts what the

Bible says, what do we believe? The Bible, okay?

Because any other writing is going to be the writing of men. The Bible was inspired, it's

God breathed, that's why we call it the Word of God, and it bears forth the glory of God in his attributes.

Only the Bible does that. I mean, when you read through the scripture and you see, you know, there was a,

I wish I could think of his name now, a very famous preacher was asked to give a commencement address at Wheaton College, everybody knows

Wheaton, right? That's the Mecca of Baptist seminaries, all right?

And you know what this guy did? Here he is, he's given a commencement address. He stood up there and opened his notes and for half an hour just read all the names of God and the titles of God, and by the time he finished, the entire audience was in tears, and they said it was like one of the best commencement addresses they'd ever had, and all he did was read the names of God, because the names of God show the glory, his glory and his attributes.

That says something, all right? And then the excellency of Christ in his nature and offices, and the power and fullness of the

Holy Spirit in his workings and operations. One of the things I've really enjoyed is, or going through this

Gospel of John, is showing Christ in all his various offices that he's held, showing his deity, his humanity, and putting it all together, and we have really seen and gotten a good idea of who

Christ is, okay? So that's saving faith embraces the infallibility and excellency of the scriptures.

Paragraph 2b, saving faith responds appropriately to everything in the scriptures. It's one thing to embrace it, it's another thing to to respond appropriately, and so enabled to cast his soul upon the truth thus believed, and act differently upon that which each particular passage contains.

What is that saying? When you read something, not only say, yes, this is true, I've got to do that.

That's why what the preacher does is make some sort of a practical application from what we have read to, you've got to change.

When you hear the word preached, every Sunday when you hear the word preached, you should leave that building, that sanctuary, differently than you came in, because you can't encounter the living

God without a change, okay?

And that's all this is saying. Whatever passage, you're responding appropriately to it, yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings.

You don't hear that very often, but when the preacher starts talking about the wrath of God, if that doesn't cause you to tremble, all right?

And embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come. That's all part of saving faith.

If you have saving faith, you're going to respond. If you don't have saving faith, you can walk out, you know, just brush it off your back.

Last part of paragraph two, saving faith, principally trusting

Christ alone for salvation from sin. Now notice that saying comes right from what the principal acts of saving faith have immediate relation to Christ.

In other words, saving faith is all by what? Virtue of Christ and His work, okay?

And that's what we mean by Christ alone. Remember, we believe in salvation through faith alone, but not salvation by faith alone.

Saving faith is always accompanied by acts of sanctification and acts of obedience, all right?

And so accepting, receiving, and resting upon Him alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace.

Now this is just kind of a summary of these last several chapters of justification, of adoption, of sanctification.

All of this is all rests on the work of Christ, okay?

Then part three is the distinctiveness of saving faith. First part of paragraph three, the fact of the distinctiveness, the fact qualified, this faith, although it is different in degrees, may be weak or strong, yet it is in the least degree of it different in kind or nature of it, okay?

In other words, this faith, your saving faith, is different than any other kind of faith, even a weak faith, because let's face it, you know, when you're first saved, especially if you're coming, if you're saved out of a background where you haven't been taught, all right?

If you're a young person here and you've been, and you've grown up in a church, especially if you've grown up in a church like this, think of the blessings.

You know so much before God even saves you. Some people come, they walk in, they hear a message for the first time and they're saved, and what do they know?

They don't, you know, they don't even know John 3 16. I can't tell you how many people have been referred to me for counseling, and when

I give them the gospel, they say, you know, I never heard that before. Talk about people living right around us, never heard it, all right?

So, but it's different, so that's the fact qualified, emphasized, as is all other saving grace from the faith and common grace of temporary believers, all right?

It's different from common grace. You know, one of the things that you see the the graciousness of God, people who are not

Christians still get favor from God. We call it common grace, all right?

And remember temporary believers, remember that's kind of a misnomer, but we've already gone through that in a confession.

That means somebody who makes a profession of faith, although it may not be a genuine profession.

God gives them a certain amount of grace, but the saving faith for the elect is different, and it must be acted on, and it must not be alone completely.

The second half of the paragraph is the fruit of distinctiveness, and therefore, though it may be many times assailed and weakened, yet it gets to victory.

You may go through a time in your life, you know, I don't know what's going on. Has God abandoned me?

You know, as a preacher, I hear that frequently. How could God allow me to go through this?

And faith can weaken, it can wane, all right? Yet it gets to victory, growing up in many to the attainment of full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.

Questions? You see how the two go together, and why sanctification really deserves to be before saving faith?

Tremendous document, isn't it? It lays it all out. Should be reading through this at least once a year.

You should just read through the confession, probably more, because it's all there.