The Life of Faith

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. HEBREWS 11:1

Everything in Simpson’s teaching is received the same way, and it is worth setting out how he understood the receiving.

Faith is a definite act

His characteristic emphasis was that faith is not a mood but a transaction — something a believer does at a particular moment, on the strength of something God has said. His own healing is the pattern. He did not drift into a general confidence about his health. He went into the woods, settled the scriptural question, and made a definite pledge: taking Christ then and there as the life of his body. He wrote it down. He dated it. Afterwards, when symptoms returned, he did not renegotiate — he referred back to a transaction already completed.

He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. ROMANS 4:20–21

Simpson urged believers to make such transactions explicitly rather than hoping vaguely. A vague faith cannot be tested, cannot be remembered, and cannot be stood upon when feelings change — which they will.

Faith rests on a word, not on itself

The distinction that keeps this from becoming dangerous is where faith is placed. Faith is not a force we generate, and its power does not lie in its intensity. It lies entirely in its object. A weak grip on a strong rope is safer than a fierce grip on nothing.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. ROMANS 10:17

Which means the way to increase faith is not to try to believe harder. It is to find out what God has actually said, since faith is produced by the Word rather than by effort. Simpson’s counsel to the struggling was always to send them back to a specific promise rather than to exhort them to greater conviction. He also distinguished sharply between faith and presumption. Faith takes hold of something God has promised. Presumption takes hold of something we want and attaches God’s name to it. The difference is not the strength of the confidence — presumption is often more confident — but whether there is a word from God underneath.

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us. 1 JOHN 5:14

Faith and feeling

Simpson returned constantly to the order of these two, because reversing them had wrecked so many. The natural sequence we want is: feel, then believe. God’s sequence is: believe, and the feeling follows or does not, and either way the fact stands. His own conversion was the first lesson in this. He took Christ at fifteen with no emotion whatever and spent some time troubled by the absence, until he understood that he had been looking for evidence in the wrong place. He built the rest of his life on that order.

For we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:7

An honest caution

Teaching of this kind has a shadow, and it must be named. When faith is presented as the decisive factor, a believer whose prayer is not answered can only conclude that his faith was insufficient — and from there it is a short step to a religion of anxious self-examination, and a shorter one to telling the suffering that their trouble is their own fault. Simpson himself was more careful than some of his followers, but the danger is real and this book has already met it in chapter four. Three guards are necessary. Faith is God’s gift, not our achievement — it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Its measure is not a moral score. Unanswered prayer is not proof of unbelief. Paul asked three times and was refused, and no one has ever suggested his faith was defective. And the object of faith is a Person with His own wisdom, not a mechanism that delivers on demand. The father in Mark 9 who said he believed and asked for help with his unbelief received exactly what he asked for, which suggests that God’s threshold is lower than ours.

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. MARK 9:24

Faith, then, is neither a feeling nor a force. It is taking God at His word, in a definite act, about a specific thing He has actually said — and then behaving as though it were true, because it is.

Faith puts its foot in the water

Faith, in Scripture, characteristically acts before it sees — and Simpson’s favourite illustration was the crossing of Jordan. The river was in flood. The instruction given to the priests carrying the ark was that they should step into the water, and that the waters would then be cut off.

And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests …shall rest in the waters of Jordan …the waters of Jordan shall be cut off. JOSHUA 3:13

The order is unmistakable. The feet go in first; the river parts afterwards. Had the priests waited for evidence that the promise was reliable, they would have stood on the bank for the rest of their lives. Simpson applied this to the sticking point in most Christian experience. We wait for the assurance before we act, and God has arranged matters so that the assurance arrives in the acting.

Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. JAMES 2:18

James is not correcting Paul. He is describing the same faith from the outside. What cannot be seen directly can be inferred from what a person actually does, and a faith that never issues in an act cannot be distinguished from an opinion. The practical counsel is uncomfortable and short. Identify the step you have been waiting to feel ready for. Note that you have been waiting a considerable time. Take it.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Find a specific promise of God that covers your present need. Not a general impression — a text. 2. Make a definite transaction about it: put it in words, write the date, and tell God you are taking Him at His word. 3. When feelings contradict it later, do not renegotiate. Refer back. 4. Test whether you are exercising faith or presumption. Is there a word from God underneath, or only something you want?

5. If your faith feels small, pray Mark 9:24 exactly as it stands. It was answered.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have called it faith when it was only hoping, and I have wondered why nothing was settled.

Show me what You have actually promised. Let my confidence rest on Your word and not on the strength of my own believing.

I take You at Your word today about the thing I have brought You. When my feelings say otherwise, hold me to what was settled.

And where my faith is small, I say what the father said: I believe; help my unbelief. You did not turn him away. Amen.