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Faith’s Greater Son

[Faith] is the means of our spiritual livelihood and subsistence: All other graces like birds in the nest depend upon what faith brings them.

– John Flavel, The Method of Grace, etc, p. 133

A while back I noted (HERE) Henry Scougal’s description of faith as the trunk of a tree stretching out into the life-giving soil that is Jesus Christ. The other graces are branches that reach heavenward toward God and outward toward man. The nutrition, in this analogy, comes from faith’s contact with Christ.

Flavel’s analogy sees faith as a mother-bird feeding her nestlings. Without the spiritual provision of faith, uniting us to Christ, all other graces remain unfed.

If faith is so vital, then, if all else depends on faith, how can the Apostle Paul say that love is greater than faith?:

  • 1 Corinthians 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Because, as Jesus is David’s greater Son, so love is faith’s greater son. Without David, there is no Jesus. His genealogy would be completely different. Yet Jesus is greater than David. And so, without faith there would be no true love. But love is greater. This is the case because, as Thomas Watson puts it,

Other graces make us like Christ, faith makes us members of Christ (A Body of Practical Divinity, p. 126).

It all starts with faith, which stretches out to the soil for nutrition and life. But without love, we will never be able to say that we are like our Savior. And believing in Christ, while essential, is not the ultimate goal – the ultimate goal is being like him. Do not read me wrong here. Faith is essential even to being like him. It is necessary at every step along the way, for faith, like a mother-bird, feeds love. But she is feeding one that is greater than herself.

This also means that it is right to say that sanctification is spurred on as we continually look to our justification. Looking to our justification, using our analogy, is like looking to our mother for food. That is, we look by faith to Christ crucified to find strength to love.

Note: I originally found both quotes in a book I highly, and I mean highly, recommend: A Puritan Golden Treasury, which, as of my writing this, is available for a penny (yes 1 measly cent, plus shipping) on Amazon!

He Shall be like a Growing Tree: Henry Scougal on Faith

The root of the divine life is faith; the chief branches are love to God, charity to man, purity and humility…Faith hath…a kind of sense, or feeling persuasion of spiritual things; it extends itself unto all divine truths; but in our lapsed estate, it hath a peculiar relation to the declarations of God’s mercy and reconcilableness to sinners through a mediator; and therefore, receiving its denomination form that principal object, is ordinarily termed ‘faith in Jesus Christ.’

-Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man, (Sprinkle) p. 46

According to Scougal, Faith’s object is Jesus Christ. Faith is the root of spiritual life. Faith produces love for God, love for man, and holiness. Faith entails a ‘feeling persuasion’ of spiritual things and divine truth.

Using the analogy of a tree,
Faith is a root stretched out toward the life-giving soil that is Christ,
grows up and produces the trunk of spiritual life
and the branches of love for God and neighbor,
and soaks up the sun of spiritual reality and divine truth.

  • Mark 4:20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.