“Strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.” Ephesians 3:16

Chapter 8.

Establishment in the Faith, Essential to the Advancement of the Spiritual Life.

“But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith.” Jude 20

Next to an ardent desire to be assured that he possesses the truth, the believer in Jesus will feel anxious for establishment in the truth. It will not suffice for him to know, upon evidence he may not gainsay, that he is a converted man: he will aim to be an advancing Christian. Just to have touched the border of the Savior’s righteousness, and obtained the healing, will not satisfy his conscience; with a strong and growing faith, he will strive to wrap the robe closely around him, in that full assurance of his acceptance in the Beloved, of his completeness in Christ, which supplies the strongest incentive to a walk worthy of his heavenly calling.

The relation of stability in the truth, with progress in the divine life, is the relation of cause and effect. It is impossible that there can be any progress of the spiritual life in connection with unsettledness and instability of opinion on the great points of the Christian faith. A mind that glides with every current, that vibrates with every breath, and that veers with every wind of religious sentiment, is not in a condition to advance in the high career of knowledge and of holiness. Like a cork upon the waves, or the vane upon the spire, it is never stable in its position, is never master of its own movements, never controls its own opinions, but fluctuates, bends, and follows just as the “wind of doctrine,” blowing from what quarter of the theological compass it may, capriciously leads or imperiously dictates.

To no case do the words of the Apostle James more appropriately apply than to this: “He who wavers is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

Let us apply our earnest attention to this subject, taking as our guide the solemn exhortation of Jude: “But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith.”

Our Apostle was a wise master builder of the great temple of truth. He had well considered the importance of a deep and broad foundation. But not content with this, he sought to rear upon that foundation a firm and enduring superstructure worthy of the basis upon which it reposed. Both points are before us for consideration:

the foundation upon which the believer builds,

and the work to which he is summoned, that of building up himself on that foundation.

May the Spirit of truth lay this subject solemnly upon our conscience, and unfold it in its depth and beauty to our minds.

The foundation is expressed by the words, “your most holy faith.” Were we to speak of it in general terms, we should regard this faith as including:

the doctrines of faith,

the precepts of faith,

the grace of faith,

the profession and maintenance of faith.

In all of these, the believer needs to be well established. But we may take a more circumscribed view of the subject, and regard ‘the faith’ here alluded to as the doctrine of faith, which sets forth the Lord Jesus Christ in his person and work, as constituting the one foundation upon which the believing sinner builds. The faith of the child of God stands in the righteousness of the God-man Mediator, “the righteousness which is of God, by faith.”

This faith has not been inappropriately termed the “poor man’s grace.” It is so because it comes to Jesus empty-handed. It travels to Christ in poverty and in rags, in want and in woe. It is the grace of him who, feeling the workings of an inward plague, and repudiating all idea of human merit, appears at the door of mercy, “poor in spirit,” humbly, knocking, and earnestly suing, and freely receiving as a pensioner, the blessing of sovereign grace.

Oh how glorious to the eye of such a one appears the righteousness of the Incarnate God! How precious to his heart is the atoning blood of Jesus! How suitable and attractive to his view, is the foundation to which he is invited, and upon which with the confidence of faith he is encouraged to build his assured hope of future glory! Who would not desire, and who would not seek, establishment in a ‘faith’ like this? A faith that can read:

its pardon in the blood of Christ,

its justification in the righteousness of Christ,

its sanctification in the grace of Christ, and

its security in the resurrection, life, and intercession of the Great High Priest enthroned in Heaven!

O let a man’s faith cling to this, and he is a saved man! And to be saved! O how will eternity prolong the swelling chant, “Saved, forever saved! A sinner the very chief, a saint the very least, a child the most unworthy! Yet here, through grace, I am, saved, forever saved!”

Before the glory and importance of this salvation, oh how do the grandeur and the significance of all other objects fade and disappear! “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation!” How can we escape the wrath to come? How can we escape the undying worm, the quenchless fire, the eternal damnation of Hell?

How shall we escape?

No refuge affords its shelter.

No rock consents to fall upon us.

No mountain moves to hide us.

No depth opens to cover us.

No ocean yearns to engulf us.

No avenue of escape, whatever, presents itself to the longing eye.

Reader, how can you escape falling into the hands of the “living God,” that God, an angry God; that angry God, a “consuming fire”—if you neglect to secure a saving interest in this great salvation? Remember, you have no part in the divine life, the life of God in the soul of man, if this salvation is not yours.

“This is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life, and he who has not the Son has not life.” “He who believes on the Son has everlasting life. He who believes not on the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.” Ponder and pray over these solemn words. Let them sink down into your heart. Turn them into reflection and into prayer.

If you are pursuing other objects to the exclusion of this paramount one, the salvation of your soul, you are pursuing the most foolish shadows that ever flitted across your path. You are a shadow in chase of a shadow! “For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.” And where does it go? Does it melt away as a vapor melts into nothing? Oh no! “The spirit returns to God who gave it.”

The hope of annihilation is . . .

the infidel’s dogma,

the atheist’s creed,

the dream of the sensualist, and

the vain hope of the unbelieving sinner.

He boasts of it, he glories in it, he sighs for it, and gladly would he welcome it!

But feels that he is immortal, and he cannot annihilate even the feeling of a deathless existence, enshrined within him. He attempts to quench the fire, to smother the ember, to put out the spark of his immortality!

“But the inextinguishable flame burns on,

  And will forever burn.”

But to return. The faith of the true believer is built upon Christ. It has Christ for its basis, Christ for its object, Christ for its beginning and its end. It is built upon:

the Godhead of his person,

the obedience of his life, and

the vicariousness of his death.

He who builds his faith short of Deity, builds upon the treacherous sand, which the first heaving billow sweeps from beneath his feet. We want, in the great matter of our salvation:

Deity to become incarnate,

Deity to obey,

Deity to atone,

Deity to justify,

Deity to uphold,

Deity to comfort, and

Deity to bring us at last to the glorious abode of Deity, to dwell amidst its splendors forever!

This “most holy faith” includes not merely what we are to believe, but also what we are to practice. It embraces not only the doctrines of Christ, but equally the precepts and commandments of Christ. The true Christian desires to stand complete in all the will of God. No longer under a covenant of works, but under the law of Christ, he aspires to be an obedient disciple, manifesting his love to Jesus, by observing the commands of Jesus. He wants Christ to be his King to govern him, as he wants him to be his Priest to atone for him; to sanctify, as to save him. Pardon and sanctification, “the blood and the water” are the inseparable results which faith looks for, springing from the death of Jesus.

The character of this faith, in which the Christian needs to be established, is yet to be considered. It is called “most holy faith.” It is the “truth which is according to godliness.” The mystery of our faith is the “mystery of godliness,” or, a godly mystery. By the apostle Jude it is characterized as our “most holy faith.”

Its nature is holy,

its principle is holy,

its actings are holy,

its tendencies are holy,

its fruits are holy, yes, “most holy.”

It aims at universal holiness!

It seeks to “bring every thought into obedience to Christ;” nor will it cease its mighty work, opposed, thwarted, and foiled, though it be—until the soul it sanctifies takes its place without fault before the throne,” perfected in the image of God and of the Lamb. We make the appeal to the experienced believer. Do not you, who often cry, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?” feel that yours is a most holy faith? Does it not detect the workings of inbred sin, and cause you to loathe yourselves, and to cry with intense vehemence for more of that holiness of heart and life to which you are predestined, and without which no man can see the Lord?

Surely every believer will set his seal to the declaration, that the doctrine of faith which he believes, and the grace of faith which he exercises, is, in its nature and its fruits, a “most holy faith.”

We now come to the precept: building up yourselves on your most holy faith.” Establishment in the truth is a matter of great importance in the experience of a child of God. Hence the especial stress which the Spirit of truth has laid upon it. What says the Scripture?

In the Acts of the Apostles, we find the record of a visitation of the churches made by Paul and Barnabas, with a view to the greater establishment of the saints in their most holy faith. We read in 14:22, that they went forth “confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith.” This act of confirming was not a religious rite or ceremony connected with the laying on of the hands of the apostles, as some have mistakingly predicated of the passage, but was what the term plainly implies, a building up of the believing converts in the faith of the gospel. They did not go forth confirming the bodies, but the renewed “souls of the disciples.”

We again read in chapter 15:32, that “Judas and Silas being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words, and confirmed them.” Here was no imposition of hands, no outward ceremony. It was simply one of those ‘acts of the Apostles’ by which the wavering minds, and the unstable hearts, and the vacillating souls of these disciples of the Lord, were fortified, strengthened, and settled:

in the person of Christ,

in the love of God,

in the covenant of grace,

and in the holy, obedient walk which befit them as the professed followers of Jesus.

Yet again we read, “And so the churches were established in the faith and increased in numbers daily,” Acts 16:5. The Apostle Paul, writing to the saints at Rome, uses this affecting language: “I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established.”

He advances the same idea, and breathes the same holy desire in his letter to the Colossian saints: “If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel,” Colossians 1:23. How impressive his exhortations, bearing out the same truth: “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him; rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving,” Colossians 2:6, 7.

Writing to the Corinthian Church, he says, “Now he who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God,” 2 Corinthians 1:21. Thus it was that these faithful, vigilant ministers of the Lord sought to confirm and build up the believing saints “upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” But what is implied in this precept, “building up yourselves on your most holy faith?” Let us endeavor to ascertain.

We must place in the foreground a clear understanding of the faith. Inquire of many Christian professors what they believe, and their answer is at best but vague and indefinite. They have no clear, defined view of the faith which they profess. They have no distinct, discriminating knowledge of the doctrines of grace. With Calvinists, they are Calvinists; with Arminians, they are Arminians. They are Protestants today, they are Papists tomorrow. Ask them for a scriptural reason of the hope that is in them; they are at a loss to give it. We marvel not that such ill-instructed souls should fall an easy prey to the spirit of error, and that in the knowledge of the truth they are but as “children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”

Such need to build themselves up on their most holy faith. They require establishment in the truth, to know what they believe, and why they believe it. To attain to this, we would exhort such disciples to refrain from works of religious controversy, to cease from the polemics of theology, and to make the Word of God more the one book of their diligent and prayerful study, casting themselves upon the teaching of the Spirit.

Establishment in the truth also implies a firm, unyielding maintenance of the great truths which we believe. We should cherish such an exalted view and high estimate of the greatness, value and preciousness of what we believe to be God’s truth, as to be ready to vindicate and maintain it at all hazards. A disciple of Jesus should be willing to buy the truth at any price, and sell it at no price. He should possess it, though it may cost him the loss of all earthly good. He should not barter it, though all earthly good were offered in exchange. In the meekness of Christ’s spirit, and in the strength of Christ’s grace, he should be ever ready “earnestly to contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

No honored names should bias him,

no human eloquence should persuade him,

no distinguished example should influence him,

no plausible sophistry should embarrass him,

no covert assault should surprise him.

But clothed with the panoply of the gospel, he should be prepared at every point to resist the seductions of error, and at every step to maintain the divinity of truth, grasping firmly, and wielding skillfully, the “sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”

Progression in the knowledge of the faith is an essential element in establishment in the faith. The metaphor of the Apostle Jude implies this idea, “Building up yourselves.” Here is progress, here is advancement; the building rises, the structure ascends, stone is laid upon stone, beam is added to beam; and thus “all the building fitly framed together grows unto a holy temple in the Lord.” This was Paul’s prayer for the Colossian saints: “That you might walk worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

How many Christian professors limit their spiritual knowledge to the first elements of truth! They seem never to pass beyond the alphabet of the gospel. But if we would be built up on our most holy faith, if we desire the advancement of the divine life within us:

we must know more of Jesus,

we must discern more beauty in our Beloved,

we must see more of the glory of our Incarnate God,

we must know more of the love and grace of the Father in the gift of His dear Son,

we must, in a word, grow in the knowledge of God and of Christ.

Thus the soul will be established. Every step within the great sanctuary of truth will confirm the believing heart in the divinity and the vastness, the riches and the glory of its treasures. That no such affluence of wisdom and knowledge, and truth and holiness, could flow from any other source than Deity, would be a reflection disarming every assault upon the faith of the Christian of its virulence and power. There can be no real establishment, then, apart from growth in spiritual knowledge. Christian professors who are not, “giving all diligence, to add to their faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity;” become an inviting and an easy prey to the prowling spirit of error.

The motives which plead for our establishment in the faith are many and strong:

The glory of God pleads for it,

the honor of Christ pleads for it,

the nature of truth pleads for it,

our own advancement in the divine life pleads for it,

the moral influence which we exert over others, pleads for it.

All these motives, so powerful, touching, and persuasive, urge us to “build up ourselves in our most holy faith.” O seek to be rooted and grounded in the faith! Seek to be built up in the Lord Jesus! Be not always a babe in knowledge, a mere dwarf in understanding; but go forward in the use of all God’s ordained means of faith until you “come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ!”

Welcome all God’s dealings as designed and as tending to build you up on your most holy faith, and thus advance the life of God in your soul. A hallowed possession of trial is a great mean of soul advancement.

Affliction is God’s school. Every true disciple has passed through it. Every true child of God has been placed in it. Every glorified saint has emerged from it. “Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of your law.” Chastening is the school; instruction is the end. Humbling and painful though the process is, who, to secure such an end, would not meekly welcome the discipline?

Do not overlook your individual responsibility in this matter of establishment. “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith.” There is a sense in which it is our own concern, our individual work. The Christian is here cast, as it were, upon his own endeavor. He is not to be wholly passive, wrapping himself in the garment of indolence, and indifference, and inactivity. Far from it, he is to rouse himself to the great task; to labor as though the achievement of that task were of a power solely his own.

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” “It is God who works in you” are words which at once link human accountability and individual responsibility with Divine power and accomplishment. “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” Building up yourselves:

by the diligent study of the word,

by close walking with God,

by the mortification of indwelling sin,

by watchfulness against temptation,

and by ever looking unto Jesus.

Let every Christian professor feel that God has given him this work to do, that he is responsible for its being done, and that all grace is laid up in Jesus for its performance, and the Church of God would go forth in the great work of her Head, “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.”

Christian reader, persevere!

Angels whisper, persevere!

Saints bending from their thrones in glory, whisper, persevere!

God bids you, persevere!

Christ, pointing to your glittering crown, bids you, persevere!

The Holy Spirit earnestly speaks, “Be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

“Only one life to live and soon is past

Only what’s done for Christ will last!”

Hoping to make the time I have left count for the glory of God.