Faith Connects One With The Mediator

Minister:
Date: PM
Text: John 15; Lord's Day 7
Psalters: 45, 392, 99, 355
  1. Faith’s power.
    1. The Catechism takes Jesus’ idea (John 15) of believers being grafted into Him.
      1. The figure of grafting.
      2. Applied: God takes the elect branches from the dead tree of Adam and grafts them into the vine of Christ.
    2. This work of uniting us with Christ is accomplished before we are conscious of it.
      1. Faith is given when God implants Christ = s life in the elect at regeneration.
      2. The activity of believing is possible because the power (ability) to believe was given first (Acts 5:31; Phil. 1:29).
    3. The figure implies:
      1. One, salvation is of God alone (not man), for He does the grafting, binding the elect to Christ.
      2. Two, only the grafted ones are saved, not all who fell in Adam!
      3. Three, the faith which connects Jesus to each believer becomes an activity.
  2. The power (ability) to believe is a living thing, and therefore it is active - faith without works is dead (James 2:17,20,26).
    1. Faith is not sight (II Cor. 5:7; Romans 8:24,25; Heb. 11:1).
    2. The essential activity of faith is that of knowing Jesus to be God’s begotten Son (John 3:16-18,36).
      1. Faith is knowing Whom we have believed (II Tim. 1:12), so we abide in Christ and cleave to Him (Acts 11:23); it is to draw from Him, to turn to Him, and to embrace Him.
      2. All in Him will produce the fruit of good works.
      3. Living branches (on this side of the grave) need pruning and purging, so we produce more and better fruit.
    3. The activity of faith is like anything living, namely, it should be developing, but sometimes is wanes.
      1. The activity of faith is also a work of the Holy Spirit, Who constantly breathes life into us.
      2. The Spirit works the activity of faith through the means of the Word, the means of grace.
  3. Bound together with Christ, Christians are assured of their salvation.
    1. The nature of our faith is that we have a certain intellectual knowledge of all that God has revealed in His Word.
      1. What believers know makes them confident and sure.
      2. Confidence is a part of friendship and is rooted in the knowledge that we are unchangeably loved.
    2. Our assurance usually corresponds to the activity of faith.