Why is faith selected as the channel of salvation? No doubt this inquiry is often made. “By grace are ye saved through faith,” is assuredly the doctrine of Holy Scripture, and the ordinance of God; but why is it so? Why is faith selected rather than hope, or love, or patience?Faith Was Created To Be The Receiver Of Grace
Suppose that I am about to give a poor man some money: I put it into his hand—why? Well, it would hardly be fitting to put it into his ear, or to lay it upon his foot; the hand seems made on purpose to receive. So, in our mental frame, faith is created on purpose to be a receiver: it is the hand of the man, and there is a fitness in receiving grace by its means.
Do let me put this very plainly. Faith which receives Christ is as simple an act as when your child receives an apple from you, because you hold it out and promise to give him the apple if he comes for it. The belief and the receiving relate only to an apple; but they make up precisely the same act as the faith which deals with eternal salvation. What the child’s hand is to the apple, that your faith is to the perfect salvation of Christ. The child’s hand does not make the apple, nor improve the apple, nor deserve the apple; it only takes it; and faith is chosen by God to be the receiver of salvation, because it does not pretend to create salvation, nor to help in it, but it is content humbly to receive it.
“Faith is the tongue that begs pardon, the hand which receives it, and the eye which sees it; but it is not the price which buys it.” Faith never makes herself her own plea, she rests all her argument upon the blood of Christ. She becomes a good servant to bring the riches of the Lord Jesus to the soul, because she acknowledges where she drew them from, and owns that grace alone entrusted her with them.
- Charles Spurgeon
I was reading Koinonia's blog today and really liked the quote that Brian choose from Charles Spurgeon above. Charles Spurgeon's illustration comparing giving an apple to a child to recieving salvation by faith will be burned in to my memory because every week after the bible studies in Canete we give apples to the children (and I just happened to have a picture of it.) It goes to show how important illustrations are in the expounding of God's word. Please pray for Brian's father because he has suffered a stroke and is in the hospital. Also pray for Brian and his family they happened to be in the states visiting churches when this happened.