NOTE A. See vol. i. p. 59.
THE MEANINGS OF THE WORD 'FAITH.'
The history of the original Hebrew and Greek words for believing or faith, is very interesting. The Hebrew verb ('aman') means 'to prop' or 'support'[[1]]. Now (1) a form of this verb means 'to be supported,' hence 'to be firm,' hence 'to be trustworthy'; (2) another form of the verb means 'to support oneself on,' and hence 'to trust,' 'to believe.' From (1) comes the Hebrew substantive ('emunah') meaning 'faithfulness,' 'trustworthiness,' which is used, as elsewhere, so also in Habakkuk ii. 4. In that passage it is revealed to the prophet, that, while the apparently overwhelming wave of Chaldaean barbarism rolls over him and passes away, 'the just man shall live (or save his life) by his faithfulness.' But this faithfulness of the righteous Israelite means a faithful holding on through the dark days to the word of God as to a secure ground of confidence; and thus the substantive used in this place in the Greek Bible ('pistis') tends to pass into the meaning which it mostly, though not always[[2]], has in the New Testament—a meaning derived not from form (1) but from form (2) of the Hebrew verb mentioned above (which however had no corresponding substantive)—trust or faith in the word and promise of another, especially God or Christ; or, still more characteristically, trust in the person of Christ and so of God.
Even under this heading of belief or trust the range of the word's meaning is considerable. In one passage of St. James' Epistle it is a bare intellectual recognition of the truth of things, without any moral value ('the devils also believe' that God is one, James ii. 19). More often it is that confidence in the divine word or promise, by which the good man, in lack of present evidence, sustains his courage or his prayer and wins his victory over the world: so especially in Hebr. xi, Luke xviii. 8, James ii. 23, 2 Cor. v. 7, 1 John v. 4. But its most characteristic use, as said above, is what first appears in the Gospels. The person of Jesus is there represented as eliciting from men a supreme trust in His power to heal diseases, and also to satisfy that deeper human need of which the disease is an outward symbol. And this power of Jesus to heal men in body and soul is seen in the Gospels to depend upon the extent of their faith: 'Thy faith hath saved thee;' 'According to thy faith be it unto thee.' Thus Jesus Christ appears constantly as inspiring, requiring, and rewarding faith in Himself, and that as the manifested Son of God, e.g. John xiv. 1. This is 'the faith which is through Him,' i.e. which He produces; and which as 'faith in His name' remains the characteristic Christian quality when He is gone from sight (Acts iii. 16). 'The faith' in the Acts (vi. 7, xiii. 8, xiv. 22, &c.) means this Christian attitude towards the unseen but living and energizing Christ.
Thus when St. Paul came to believe in Jesus Christ, 'faith in Jesus,'—as meaning not merely acceptance of His claim or of His word or of His grace, but whole-hearted devotion to His person, entire self-surrender or self-committal to Christ or God in Christ—became the dominant note of his new state: 'I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day' (2 Tim. i. 12[[3]]). And this same devotion to Christ becomes, in St. Paul's theology, in its various stages, the only ground of man's acceptance with God. And though he uses 'faith' in a morally lower sense, as distinct from love—the faith which qualifies for miracles (1 Cor. xiii. 2)—yet in his characteristic sense of the term it involves the deepest love towards its divine object[[4]].
Naturally, as faith is thus the characteristic of Christianity, and this faith in a person involves a belief about Him—His divine sonship, His resurrection, His mission of the Spirit—so 'the faith' comes to mean (objectively) that which the Christian believes, or his creed; and this sense of the word appears almost in the Acts, in Gal. i. 23, and in Eph. iv. 5, and certainly in the Pastoral Epistles frequently (see Dr. Bernard in Camb. Gr. Test. on 1 Tim. i. 19) and St. Jude's Epistle, verse 2.
[[1]] We are familiar with the derived adverb of confirmation, 'Amen.'
[[2]] In Rom. iii. 3, Matt, xxiii. 23, it is still used for 'faithfulness.'
[[3]] In spite of Ellicott, Holtzmann, and Bernard, I believe this to be the true rendering, and not that of the R.V. margin.
[[4]] On the development of the principle of faith in the soul, see vol. i. pp. 29, 30; and on its naturalness, in the highest sense, for man, see pp. 21, 22.