Jesus’ Faith

Jesus’ Faith

Jesus was the author and finisher of faith. After man had fallen in sin, God promised that the woman’s Seed would crush the serpent’s head. Everyone in the old covenant could build his faith on the hope of this promise of God being fulfilled. In this way Jesus was the author of faith.

Abraham, who lived long before Jesus, received a powerful testimony for his faith and was called “the father of all those who believe.” Rom. 4:11. By believing God, he availed himself of God’s promise, so that he did not spare his son, his only son. Therefore God blessed him exceedingly by making him the father of the Jewish people, God’s chosen people on earth. He also received the promise from the Lord that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed, “because you have obeyed My voice.” Gen. 22:15-18.

When the fullness of the time had come, Jesus was born into mankind. Concerning Him, God said that He would crush the serpent’s head, and this was done so that after being born of a woman (Gal. 4:4), the sin that was in man’s flesh was condemned. This opened the way to a new covenant that promised heavenly blessings (Rom. 8:3) in contrast to the earthly blessings of the old covenant. Gen. 28.

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them . . . .” Heb. 10:16. Note this: He will put laws into people’s hearts and minds. Who could possibly believe and comprehend such love from God that He would put His laws into their hearts and write them in their minds! And what were people supposed to do with God’s laws in their hearts and minds? This is where the Spirit of Christ was meant to work in their hearts and minds, to keep God’s laws and do His will. When these laws of the Spirit are followed, they liberate man from the law of sin and death and give him strength to overcome all sin. Hallelujah! This was God’s purpose in Christ Jesus—that He would overcome all the desires of the flesh and never, not for one second, succumb to the demands of the flesh. And so He could present Himself to the Father as the sacrificial Lamb, the Lamb who atoned for our sins!

Thus it became possible for all men to follow Jesus in faith and overcome all the demands of the flesh. This is the new covenant in Jesus’ blood. Hallelujah!

When Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect,” He has good reason to say that and is entirely justified in giving His disciples this commandment, because everything has become possible through Jesus’ sufferings and death, and through His life.

Let us therefore believe that we can partake of this great salvation, so that Jesus’ work and His life for us will not have been in vain.