Faith as a Bond

II. David J. Engelsma

Fundamentally, true faith is union with Jesus Christ—real, spiritual union with Christ. Modern evangelicalism, which is for the most part Arminian, has virtually hidden this basic truth about faith. For contemporary evangelicalism, faith is fundamentally activity—some act of the sinner: making a decision for Christ; coming to the front of some auditorium; raising his hands as a sign of accepting Jesus; or having some strong feeling. Even Reformed theologians commonly overlook the fundamental nature of faith, regarding faith exclusively as the activity of believing.

Although the Confession does justice to faith’s spiritual activity, it also indicates that faith is union with Christ. “Faith which embraces Jesus Christ … [and] appropriates him” (emphasis added). An embrace is union, like the embrace of a husband and wife. Appropriation implies the closest communion with the Savior. The Confession adds: “Faith is an instrument that keeps us in communion with him” (emphasis added). True faith is a spiritual bond that unites us with, and implants us into, Jesus Christ, just as a branch is engrafted into the tree or vine. When the Spirit first kindles faith in the heart of the elect, in the language of the Confession, he unites the elect with Christ. This uniting of the elect sinner with Christ takes place at the moment of regeneration.

This initial kindling of faith that unites with the Savior can and often does take place in elect children of believers, when they are very young, or even still in the womb of their mothers. Thus they too are saved and are saved by faith, although their faith is not yet a conscious believing on the Savior. Before the prophet Jeremiah was born, God sanctified him in his mother’s womb (Jer. 1:5). When John the Baptist was still in Elizabeth’s womb, he leaped for joy at the presence of Jesus (Luke 1:44). Only one who was united to the Savior would have responded to the presence of the Savior in this manner. It is this truth about faith, with the covenantal promise of salvation for the children of believers, that underlies the Reformed confession that believing parents have no reason to fear concerning the salvation of their very young, and even unborn, children who die in infancy [Canons I:17]. Not only does God’s election touch them, but also these children are saved by faith.

Evidence in scripture that faith is fundamentally union with Christ is abundant. Some passages are explicit. The saints are those who are “faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1), where the meaning is that they are faithful in their (faith) relationship with Christ, virtually, that their being in union with Christ Jesus by faith renders them faithful. Ephesians 3:17 views faith as the bond of the child of God from the point of view of the bonding Christ: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” Faith is Christ’s bond with us, or indwelling.

In fact, all the innumerable statements by Paul that the saved are “in Christ”—one of the main themes of the apostle—are descriptions of faith as a bond of union with Christ, even thought he word “faith” is not always used. An example is Ephesians 2:22: “In whom [the Lord Jesus], ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” This “inness” is faith as a bond. Because faith is a bond of union and communion with Christ, by this faith we are the dwelling place, or habitation, of God. By faith as a bond, not only is the believer in Christ Jesus, but also God is in the believer. He is the habitation of God. 

Ignoring that the passage emphasizes the possibility of a false faith, John 15:1-10 teaches that faith is the union, or bond, of a branch in Christ as the vine. It is one’s being in Christ with an abiding “inness,” or bond. Such is the union that one having true faith will certainly bear fruit. Such is the union that the very life of Christ in him, indeed, Christ himself in him, produces fruit in his life.
(The Belgic Confession: A Commentary, vol. 2 [Jenison, MI: RFPA, 2019], pp. 7-10)

III. Herman Hoeksema

Saving Faith Defined

Saving faith is that work of God in the elect, regenerated, and called sinner whereby the sinner is ingrafted into Christ and embraces and appropriates Christ and all his benefits, relying upon him in time and eternity.

By faith we are ingrafted into Christ. Faith is the spiritual means whereby we are united with Christ, the bond whereby we are made one body, one plant, with him so that by faith we may live from him, draw our all from him, and receive all his benefits. Faith is not another work on the part of salvation. All the work that makes us worthy of righteousness, eternal life, and glory has been performed and completely finished by Christ himself. That is true even of the gift of faith itself: Christ merited faith for us by his perfect obedience.

We may not say that faith is a condition that we must fulfill before God is willing to give us the salvation merited by Christ for us. There are no conditions whatsoever unto salvation. It is free and sovereign. Nor is faith to be presented as the hand by which we accept the salvation proffered by God. Often it is presented thus. Salvation is compared to a beautiful gold watch that I freely offer to someone. I hold it in my extended hand and beg the person upon whom I would bestow this gift to take it. It is his for the accepting. But he will never actually possess that watch unless he will extend his own hand to take it from mine. Similarly, it is alleged, faith is the hand by which we take hold of the salvation proffered in the gospel.

But this is not true, for the reception and appropriation of the benefits of Christ is by no means such a mechanical and external transaction as taking a watch from a man’s hand, but a profound spiritual activity of the entire soul. Besides, the natural man has no hand whereby he is able to accept the salvation of God in Christ Jesus. Faith is a bond, a spiritual bond, whereby we are so united with Christ that by it we live out of him. We must remember that literally all our salvation is in Christ. In him is our redemption, the forgiveness of sin, the adoption unto children, eternal and perfect righteousness, knowledge of God and wisdom, freedom from the dominion of sin and sanctification, and eternal life, light, and joy.

All the blessings of salvation are not only merited by Christ, but they are also in him. He is our wisdom and knowledge, our righteousness and holiness, our eternal life and peace—our complete redemption. In order to obtain these blessings of salvation, we must become one plant with him; we must be united with him in the spiritual, organic sense. And the bond whereby we are united with Christ is faith. This faith we do not possess of ourselves. It is strictly a gift of God, wrought in us by the Spirit of Christ.

This conception of faith is scriptural. The Savior compares the relation between himself and believers to the relation between the vine and the branches:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit … I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (John 15:1-5)

The apostle Paul speaks of being planted together in the likeness of the death of Christ and in his resurrection (Rom. 6:5). In Romans 11:16-24 he uses the figure of the olive tree and its branches. By faith, therefore, whereby we are ingrafted into Christ, we appropriate him unto ourselves so that his righteousness and holiness, his life and peace, become our all, and we rejoice in the God of our salvation.

The Essence of Saving Faith

A distinction can be made between the essence and the operation or between the potentia and actus of saving faith. As to its essence, faith is a spiritual potentia or habitus, the power or aptitude to apprehend and appropriate Christ and all his benefits. Faith is not another natural faculty of the soul in addition to the intellect and will. Faith is rather a new disposition of the entire soul, a spiritual habitus, which makes the whole soul of man, with mind, will, and all the inclinations of the heart, peculiarly fit to apprehend spiritual things. It is the fitness to believe, in distinction from the act of believing itself.

We may illustrate this by many natural examples. When a child is born, he has all the faculties, powers, and gifts he will ever have, even though they do not as yet actively function. The infant in the cradle has the faculty to think, to will, to perceive, and to understand the world about him, even though at that time he does not actually think and will, perceive and understand, speak and walk. If later in life the child develops into a great mathematician or a skillful musician, this mathematical bent of mind or artistic tendency was not added to the child’s talents after he was born; his talents were all given with birth.

The same may be said of saving faith. As a spiritual habitus it is given with our spiritual birth, that is, in regeneration, while it develops into the conscious activity of believing through contact with the gospel applied to the heart by the Spirit of Christ. Without this spiritual habitus it is impossible for a man to believe in Christ. If a child is born blind, he cannot be taught to see. If he is born dumb, he will never speak. It he is born deaf, the activity of hearing will never develop. The same is true spiritually. By nature the sinner is born blind and deaf and dumb with regard to spiritual things. No one can possibly teach him to see and hear and confess the God of his salvation in Christ. Even though he were instructed in the knowledge of Christ from infancy, and the gospel were preached to him all his life, there would never be any response other than contempt and rejection. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him” (1 Cor. 2:14).

This habitus of saving faith is the fruit of the Holy Ghost. It is true that the power of faith becomes active belief only through the gospel. Without that gospel, faith has no Christ to apprehend or cling to, and for that reason can never become active belief. But we must not make the mistake or presenting the matter of saving faith as if its habitus or potentia were implanted, wrought in the heart, by the Holy Spirit, while its activity is caused by the gospel without the operation of the Holy Spirit. This is not true. Both the power and the activity of faith are wrought through the Spirit of Christ only. It is the Spirit who applies the preaching of the gospel to the heart of the sinner in whom the aptitude or habitus of faith has already been wrought. It is, therefore, the Spirit of the Lord who calls and awakens the power of faith into the conscious activity of belief.

We must also remark here that this habitus or potential of faith (potentia fidei) is wrought in the heart immediately by the Spirit of Christ. The power of faith may be wrought in the heart of the smallest infant as well as in the heart of the adult. We may no doubt assume that in the sphere of the historical realization of God’s covenant, God usually gives this power of faith to the elect of the covenant in their infancy. We may also remark that the potentia fidei can never be lost. The activity of saving faith may be very weak at times, may seem to have died out and disappeared, so that we seem to have no hold on Christ and the precious promises of Christ. But the power of faith, the habitus fidei, can never be lost. Once a believer, always a believer. This is true not because of any inherent virtue in the potentia fidei, but is due only to the abiding, indwelling and continued operation of the Holy Spirit in the innermost recesses of our hearts. The bond of faith with Christ is never broken, because it is constantly preserved in us by his Holy Spirit.

Faith as a Bond of Union with Christ

We must emphasize that faith is rooted in the heart of man and that from the heart it governs and controls both intellect and will. Faith is really the bond whereby God’s people are united with Christ, the means whereby God ingrafts them into Christ and makes them one plant with him, so that they stand in living communion with him. All the benefits of salvation have not only been merited by Christ, but also are literally in him. He is their wisdom, righteousness, and complete redemption. From him and out of him they receive grace for grace.

Out of Christ, they receive the complete salvation that God has prepared for those who are given to Christ from before the foundation of the world. They receive this salvation because Christ imparts to them the benefits of salvation that he merited for them. Christ imparts himself to his brethren, for he is raised from the dead and received into heaven, far above all principalities and powers and dominion and every name that is named, and he received from the Father the quickening Spirit. “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). The first man is become a living soul; the second man is become a quickening Spirit (v. 45). “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17). Christ is become the living and quickening head of his body, the church, and he imparts himself and all the benefits of salvation to all who are given him by the Father. 

Christ imparts himself and all the benefits of salvation to his brethren only through faith, whereby God ingrafts them into Christ and makes them one plant with him. Faith, therefore, cannot be called a condition or a prerequisite that man must fulfill in order to receive salvation and all the benefits of grace, as has often been the presentation even of those who subscribe to the Three Forms of Unity. Especially when grace is presented as an offer, faith and conversion are frequently conceived of as prerequisites for the reception of that offer of grace. 

This presentation of faith is erroneous through and through. Faith certainly is not a condition which man must fulfill in order to receive the gifts of grace. On the contrary, faith itself is one of the chief gifts of grace from God to the sinner. One does not receive grace on condition that he first believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. On the contrary, he receives the gift of faith in order that he may live out of Christ. There are no conditions for salvation, simply because salvation is never dependent on anything in man. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).

Neither is faith to be conceived of as a meritorious work on the part of man whereby he assents to God’s righteousness and humbles himself in true repentance, in order to make himself worthy of the grace of God. On the contrary, faith is characterized by being itself entirely without merit. Nor may faith be presented as a spiritual power by which man’s will is liberated to do good works, whereby he is enabled to merit his own salvation.

It is certainly true that faith without works is dead and that by faith believers are enabled to bear fruit unto God. This does not alter the fact that they are not saved out of works, but that faith itself is a power unto salvation. All these presentations must be rejected on the ground of Holy Scripture, which teaches that the real work of God is that his people believe in Jesus Christ whom God has sent (John 6:29). Instead of these erroneous ideas, we must maintain that faith is God’s own work, the work of his free grace within his people, the spiritual means of God, the spiritual power (habitus), whereby God ingrafts them into Christ through the Holy Spirit, and whereby he causes all the blessings of salvation to flow out of Christ to them. It is the bond to Christ whereby their souls cleave unto him, live out of him, and receive and appropriate all his benefits.
(Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2 [Grandville, MI: RFPA, 2005], pp. 62-66, 70-72)