One Faith

Ephesians 4:5 tells us that there is but “one faith.” So the question becomes, just exactly what is that one faith? Well, the faith of Christ, you may say. Yes, but how do we define what is the faith of Christ? After all, there are hundreds of brands of what is supposedly the faith of Christ. Well, there’s one overall faith, but just a lot of different ways to express that faith, you may say. Sorry, but that doesn’t work, that is unless God is the author of confusion, which the scripture plainly says he is not (I Cor. 14:33). The real answer is that the one faith is the same one it has always been since the beginning, and the only one that it can possibly be. All we need do is take a closer look at the word ‘faith,’ and we have the answer. ‘Faith’ means faith in God. There is none other to have faith in. He is the only true and living reality, period. So the one faith is merely GOD himself. So that leaves us with the task of defining God, but he has already done that two times, with the second being far more impacting than the first. God gave Israel his law at Mt. Sinai and throughout the old testament as well, and the law was and is the expression of God’s will. It is what he is about, and defines who he is. David said it this way: “Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth" (Psm. 119:142). Well, ‘the truth’ is like ‘the faith;’ it can only pertain to God. So then, the law is ‘the truth’ about God. That’s why he gave it, so that his people could know who he is and what he’s about, for their good. Isaiah asked a greatly overlooked question, that in fact pertains to the truth of what the one faith is about: "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed" (Isa. 53:1)? And what was the ‘report’ of the prophets? The law, of course. The prophets were sent by God to bring his people back to… you guessed it, THE LAW! There was nothing else to bring them back to. The law is what God gave to Israel to follow him by, and the law is what they had forsaken. There was no other way of righteousness in the earth other than the law. God had not given many ways of following him, with one overall heading. That would be mass confusion, leaving men wondering, just who is God? No, he gave the law, and the law was definitive about God. You either obeyed God by the law, or you did not. And according to the scripture, those who did not obey the law were wicked (Psm. 119:53,155).

So what does all of this have to do with the ‘one faith’ of Christ? Everything actually, because the one faith has never changed. Jesus said plainly, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Mat. 5:17). That is correct, Jesus came to fulfill the law, not to destroy it. The apostle Paul said it this way: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law" (Rom. 3:31). So then, how is it that "we establish the law?” The same apostle gives us the answer: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death… That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:2,4). So it is the holy Ghost that gives us the fulfillment of the law, because it is in fact God’s Spirit that IS the fulfillment of the law. Again the apostle Paul explains: “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (II Cor. 3:3). And this shows the fulfillment of the prophecy of the new covenant by Jeremiah: “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jer. 31:33). For more confirmation of this point, Paul quoted this prophecy and plainly stated that it was referring to believing on Christ for the remission of sins, and receiving the holy Ghost for that very purpose (Heb. 10:14-18). And again, confirming that the Spirit is in fact the law, Paul again said, "For we know that the law is spiritual" (Rom. 7:14). So the Spirit is what God is about, and Paul even said that "the Lord is that Spirit" (II Cor. 3:17). And we know that Jesus Christ is "the express image of his [the Father’s] person,” which is to say that he is “the Amen, the faithful and true witness [of the Father]" (Heb. 1:3; Rev. 3:14). And so the ceremonial law, which was for worship and service; is done away in Christ, being fulfilled by the Spirit, and the spiritual worship of God is thereby established (Jn. 4:24; Ro. 10:4; Philip. 3:3).

The moral law is manifest in us if we walk after the Spirit, because the Spirit is the very nature of God, which is holy love; which love does not do evil because it is God (I Jn. 4:8; Rom. 13:10; Gal. 5:22,23). And the civil law, which showed how God feels about and deals with disobedience, has also been fulfilled, and has passed into the laws of the land, and into God’s hands directly; with a small portion remaining with authority in the body of Christ (Rom. 13:1-7; I Cor. 11:32; Heb. 10:30; Mat. 18:15-18; I Cor. 5:12,13). In conclusion, we now see the significance of what Jesus said immediately after saying that he didn’t come to destroy the law, but rather to fulfill it: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Mat. 5:18). And not only so, but it was the Spirit of God that faithful men followed even before the law was given at Mt. Sinai, and they showed that forth by doing the same morally right things that were contained in the law. How was that so, you may ask? Because they had a conscience that is patterned directly after the law of God, and because there has never been but one faith, or one connection to God; and that faith and connection has always been his Spirit. So like the law, the Spirit is definitive about who God is and what he’s about (Jn. 14:26; Jn. 16:13; I Cor. 2:11). Jesus Christ, who is ‘the Truth,’ suffered and died so that we could have true remission of sins, and be literally reconciled back to himself and his Father, by means of us having their common Spirit within us (Jn. 14:6,15-20,23; I Cor. 6:17; I Cor. 12:13). But even as Israel added to, and took away from the law; so God’s new testament people have added to, and taken away from what his Spirit was sent to lead us into, that being holiness (Gal. 3:3; Gal. 4:9-11; Col. 2:10,16; Eph. 4:24; Heb. 12:14). And as God’s prophets of old instructed Israel to forsake their sins and idolatry, so the faithful today strive to turn the body of Christ back to “the faith that was once delivered to the saints” (I Cor. 3:11; II Cor. 3:17; Gal. 1:6-8; Col. 2:8,20,21; Jude 1:3). Amen.