Belief: Its Power and Limitations

Belief: Its Power and Limitations I. Definitions. A. power: Ability to do or effect something or anything, or to act upon a person or thing. B. belief: The mental action, condition, or habit, of trusting to or confiding in a person or thing; trust, dependence, reliance, confidence, faith. Const. in (to, of obs.) a person. b. absol. Trust in God; the Christian virtue of faith. 2. Mental acceptance of a...

E. That man’s unbelief thwarts the will of God in such examples as given above must be qualified. 1. The thwarting is not of God’s sovereign will to do as He pleases on His own terms. In that regard, God’s will is never thwarted. ISA 46:10-11. 2. The thwarting is only of God’s promises of favors towards men which are conditioned upon their belief. Such promises carry with them a caveat that God...

VI. Consider some things that God’s word says about Jesus Christ and ask yourself whether man’s belief or unbelief of these things has any bearing on their reality. A. He is of the seed of David. ROM 1:3. B. He was conceived by God in the womb of the virgin, Mary. MAT 1:18-20. C. He is therefore the Son of God, uniquely so. LUK 1:35; JOH 1:18. D. He is God Incarnate. JOH 1:1-3, 14, 1TI 3:16. E. He is fully man, the Son of man: this is t...

IX. Because many assume that the faith/belief of the sinner is the means to procure eternal forgiveness of sin and also to procure everlasting life (combined = eternal salvation), undue significance is therefore assigned to both belief and to unbelief. A. This system usually consists of two camps: those who hold that belief is always indispensably necessary to procure eternal salvation, and those who hold that belief is only necessary to procure e...

X. The eternal salvation of sinners is a covenant salvation ordered by God and faithfully performed by God. HEB 13:20 c/w 1PE 1:2-5. A. This covenant is secure in spite of the beneficiary’s flaws (2SAM 23:2-5), analogous to the named heirs of a man’s will which cannot be changed after his death. GAL 3:15. B. God made an enduring covenant with the earth and mankind that He would never again destroy either by a global flood. GEN 8:21; 9:11. ...