“Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.”
Psalm 9:10
Theologian Theodore Beza observed, “It is not enough to have a general and confused belief that Jesus Christ came to take away the sins of the world” (1560). Such is knowledge and assent without trust. Instead, we must each appropriate and apply Jesus to ourselves. And only through trust is faith made personal and focused instead of general and confused. A trusting faith can declare with confidence, “I am in Jesus Christ through faith. That is why I cannot perish. That is why I am sure of my salvation.”
True faith, like the world we live in, is three-dimensional. Trust would be blind without knowledge and assent. They are its eyes, educating and engaging our trust. Yet knowledge and assent without trust would be like a heart without a beat—cold, still, lifeless. A living faith, one which makes us alive, “is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture; it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 21).
True faith, like the world we live in, is three-dimensional. Trust would be blind without knowledge and assent. They are its eyes, educating and engaging our trust. Yet knowledge and assent without trust would be like a heart without a beat—cold, still, lifeless. A living faith, one which makes us alive, “is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture; it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 21).
Scripture Focus
Psalm 56
Insight
Looking at knowledge, assent, and trust individually helps us to better understand faith. But only when these three come together does one stand upon faith.
Bible In A Year
- Numbers 16
- Psalm 69
- John 10
