The God Culture: What Is Faith - Biblically?

Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture has been posting the definitions of what he considers to be foundational doctrines. What is the Sabbath, what is Israel, what is the Gospel? But in this article I shall dissect his definition of faith. 

What Is Faith?

FOUNDATIONS

What Is Faith—Biblically?

Faith in Scripture is not optimism, emotion, or mental agreement.

Biblical faith is trust proven by obedience.

The debate of faith versus works is one that has raged since the time of Christ. But Tim is the only person I know who has defined faith AS works! For Tim faith isn't just trust, it is trust proven by obedience. Trust in what? He does not say. Obedience to what? Well, Tim is very adamant in his teachings it is obedience to the law.  

From the beginning, faith was never defined by words alone.

Genesis 15:6 (KJV)

And he believed in Yahuah; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Abram’s faith was credited as righteousness before Sinai, before Israel, and before any national identity. Faith was already covenantal—anchored in trust and submission to Yahuah. 

The prophets affirmed the same definition:

Habakkuk 2:4 (KJV)

The just shall live by his faith.

Faith is not static belief.

It is something one lives.

Now, this may seem orthodox but it is not. Tim does not actually believe faith makes anyone righteous. Abraham was righteous because he kept the law. 

16:44 Abraham kept the law and the sabbath. And so did Isaac and Jacob.  I mean how can they be called righteous if there was no law by which they could be judged as righteous? The very notion is ridiculous from the start.

Sabbath Series: Introduction Commentary Only

What law you might ask? Why the very law which came 430 years after the promise given to Abraham (Galatians 3:17) and was revealed on Sinai to Moses. Tim gets this doctrine from Jubilees which says the patriarchs kept that same law before it was revealed. In fact, the law is what redeems us!

19:30 So this is another example that we aren't to just have faith in Yahusha. That’s not enough. That’s not it.  No, no, no, no. We are to keep His commandments.

Sabbath Series: Part 5: The End Times Sabbath

40:11 The law is what redeems us.

The Law of Sin and Death. What is it? NOT The Law of Moses! WHAT DID PAUL SAY?"

So, any notion of faith Tim has necessarily includes law keeping.  

Scripture then defines faith clearly—not as imagination, but as confidence that results in action:

Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11 does not praise belief without action. Every example acts, obeys, builds, leaves, offers, or endures. Faith is demonstrated by movement in alignment with Yahuah’s will.

James makes this unmistakable:

James 2:17 (KJV)

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

Biblically, works do not replace faith—they reveal it. Obedience does not compete with faith—it confirms it.

Faith is action affirmed in Paul (whom James never rebuked but agreed) who said:

Ephesians 2:10 (KJV)

Created in Yahusha unto good works... that we should walk in them (act).

James 2:17 (KJV)

But faith which worketh by love.

Paul. James and all the Apostles agreed on this.

Yahusha taught the same reality:

John 5:19 (KJV)

The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do…

Faith follows.

Faith listens.

Faith obeys.

The Biblical Conclusion

Faith is not intellectual assent.

Faith is not inherited.

Faith is not claimed by title, nor by saying a prayer alone.

Faith is covenant trust expressed through obedience.

This section is not much different from the Roman Catholics or the Eastern Orthodox who teach that faith is best defined as faithfulness which is expressed through works. All three (Tim, the RC, and the EO) make the category error of confusing saving faith which justifies versus sanctification which is the natural outworking of our saving faith. I don't believe I have ever heard Tim discuss the doctrine of justification. 

Tim has not defined faith Biblically at all. More importantly he has not even discussed the OBJECT of faith which is Jesus Christ. Why would he do omit something so important? He has only discussed the results of faith, presumably in Christ. He also appears to think that anyone can exercise faith by being obedient. Has he forgotten that all men are dead in sins, objects of wrath, blinded in their minds, not seeking God, and cannot come to Jesus Christ on their own? Jesus Himself said no man can come to Him! 

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. 

No man can come to Christ except he is drawn by and it is GIVEN UNTO HIM of the Father. That is because man is dead in sins. We need to be regenerated or quickened. And then faith is GIVEN TO US. Faith is a gift, it is not a work or something we produce. 

Ephesians 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2 is a great chapter about faith and yet Tim only cited verse 10 about good works. He has purposefully left out all the crucial information about that faith which he is attempting to define Biblically. 

Let's take a look at two documents that do define faith Biblically. The first is the Canons of Dort, Heads 3/4 Article 14. 

In this way, therefore, faith is a gift of God, not in the sense that it is offered by God for people to choose, but that it is in actual fact bestowed on them, breathed and infused into them. Nor is it a gift in the sense that God bestows only the potential to believe, but then awaits assent—the act of believing—by human choice; rather, it is a gift in the sense that God who works both willing and acting and, indeed, works all things in all people and produces in them both the will to believe and the belief itself.

https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/canons-dort#toc-the-third-and-fourth-main-points-of-doctrine

The second is Article 14 of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

1. The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word, by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened.

2. By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein; and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

3. This faith is different in degrees, weak or strong; may be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory; growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.

https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/#Chapter%20XIV

Both of those definitions are Biblical and say the same thing. Namely, faith is a gift worked in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. 

In his definition Tim refers to Hebrews 11. But after listing all the many great men of faith and their deeds Paul says:

Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The WCF notes that by faith we do yield obedience but the principal acts of faith consist not in obedience but in "accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace." This faith is worked in us fully by Christ who is the author and finisher of our faith.  That is a far cry from the doctrine Tim has proposed which lacks an object in which faith is to trust.

Tim's followers will of course drink his definition of faith quite gladly and even those who know him not yet stumble upon it might say amen. But Tim's doctrine of faith betrays an erroneous theology, Christology, anthropology, and soteriology. Man is dead in sins, God must regenerate him and draw Him to Christ, and the Spirit works faith in man so that he is born again and can believe in the good news Christ brings. That is the Biblical definition of faith. Tim's definition of faith, which has not Christ for its object, robs the believer of assurance because it makes salvation dependent on the quality of their own "proven obedience" rather than the finished work of Christ.