With the dynamics of chaplaincy in public institutions we may easily
come to feel dependent, vulnerable, and even restricted. This may be more
restraining if, despite the undoubted pastoral value of CPE, we allow ourselves
to become unhinged from any agenda other than that indicated by the patient,
resident, inmate, student or other client.
Hopefully, the chaplaincy context, when viewed Biblically, can highlight
the real nature of faith, authority, commission and expectancy that relates to
all Christian life and pilgrimage. This paper looks at the nature of faith. This
discussion is not intended to indicate how any pastoral conversation would
proceed, but rather to look at some underlying theology in the mind of the
chaplain.
Our initial exercise of faith is
donated to us – our faith is of or from Christ. This is true also of the faith
by which we continue to live as believers.
There are three types of faith, which we may call existentialist, natural and supernatural.
Existentialist Faith, a “leap of faith” is a personal decision
to be committed to something, even though the thing trusted is believed to be
meaningless and to have no rational basis. This is a type of stupidity.
Natural Faith is faith
merely to believe what we pick up with the five senses of sight, hearing,
taste, touch and smell. This is a valid type of faith for everyday living
within the created order.
It is not, however, the faith that saves. “Seeing is believing” is a
description of natural faith.
Supernatural Faith is faith by which we are able to believe the
promises and instructions of the Scripture. This type of faith is supra -
rational, but it is not irrational, as God would not contradict the laws of
nature that he has created. It is just that natural faith is not the faith that
saves. This type of faith, referred to in Galatians 2: 20 and elsewhere is
discussed later in this paper.
The place of the apostle Thomas in the resurrection account in John 20
illustrates the difference between the latter two types of faith. “Because you
have seen me you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet
have believed.” (verse 29). Verse 30 indicates that faith in Christ is the
response of people who have received the testimony of the Gospels, that Christ
has risen from the dead. Jesus taught
that people who depended upon a sign to decide whether to believe would not be
given one. A wicked and adulterous
generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the
prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a
huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth.(Matthew 12: 38f)
Does this mean that God will never use a vision or a dream to evoke a
faith response?
We know from Acts 9 that Paul was given a vision of the resurrected
and ascended Christ as a prelude to his conversion. Here, again, Paul was not
seeking such a sign. In fact, he would have expected that no such thing would
be possible, because in his mind (until that time) Jesus was no more than a
blasphemer! The visions in the New Testament come as a surprise to people not
expecting them, not as a reward to the arrogance of cynical people seeking
them!
The many accounts of Muslims being converted to Christ after receiving
a vision of our Lord would seem to indicate a sovereign work of Almighty God to
break down presuppositions against belief.
Although God will never use signs to pander to “seeing is
believing”, it is also a fact that God
sometimes does miracles anywhere, of healing, or provision, or protection, in
any religious or non-religious context - and often these will lead people to
commit their lives to Christ. Sometimes God has another purpose, but the result
will either be to break presuppositions against faith, or else profoundly to
encourage folk who are already living “by the faith of the Son of God”! Baroness
Caroline Cox (a member of the House of Lords who regularly visits and reports
on countries where Christians suffer acute persecution) reported an incident in
July 2000 as told to her by an Indonesian pastor regarding an attack on
villages by extreme Islamicists. About 3,000
believers claimed they heard a loud voice proclaiming from a mountain top, “Be
not afraid, I am with you always”, and about a dozen claimed that they actually
saw the figure of Christ. They escaped danger in half the time their journey
would normally have taken.
If a patient claims to have had a vision or a dream impacting their
relationship with Christ, they should not be argued with. They may be telling
the truth. A pro-active way forward, depending upon their willingness to talk
and listen, would seem to be to encourage them in applying the Scriptures to their
walk of faith.
The faith by which we repent and receive Christ’s imputed righteousness
is itself a gift from God, and it is the Holy Spirit who reveals and enables
this life of faith. Galatians 2:20 –“the
life I now live I live by the faith of
the Son of God”, The frequent translation “the life I now live, I live
by faith in the Son of God” is not supported by the Greek, the transliteration
of which would be either “the faith which is of the Son of God”, or else “the
faith which comes from the Son of God”. The 1611 KJV (AV) and the Braid Scots
Version are faithful to this nuance. We were saved by that faith, and we are
supposed to keep living by that faith. Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore
speak… So we
fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.(2 Corinthians 4: 13,18). Of
course, the saving faith that comes by “hearing”, results from the Holy
Spirit’s joint work of revelation and illumination.
From Ephesians 1: 13-23 we
understand that when we became Christians, we were sealed by the Holy Spirit
who came to indwell us. That Holy Spirit has infused us with the same power
that raised Jesus from the dead. That power enables us to understand and live
by the Word of God. Ephesians 5: 18-25 exhorts us to keep being filled with the
Spirit and parallels Colossians 3: 16 where we are encouraged to let the Word
of Christ dwell in us richly. When we read Ephesians 5: 18-21 and Colossians 3:
16-17 together, we may conclude that we are encouraged by faith to draw on the
already indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to apply the precepts of the
Scriptures in our lives. The command to be filled is not an exhortation
passively to plead (and wait) to be “(re)zapped” or “rebooted” in a new way
from outside by the Holy Spirit. Rather we are urged actively and continually to
apply the power of the already indwelling Spirit to enable us to appropriate
the Bible in our ingoing Christian life.
True supernatural faith will
enable us to apply the promises of Scripture without depending upon purely
natural evidence of the results. We walk by faith and not by sight. That means,
among other things, that when what we pray for does not immediately manifest in
visual results, we shall persevere in believing the promise rather than
limiting the meaning to what we have already seen!
In conclusion, we are not limited
in our ministries by the agendas of institutional administrators nor by
political expediency. We have the powerful resource of the Holy Spirit to enable
us by faith and not by sight to apply the Sword of the Spirit in relating and in
speaking as opportunity arises
