Believing In The Heart

And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? - Acts 8:36

    The believing to which this passage refers is not a casual agreement with doctrinal truth. This conversation was much more than intelligent dialogue between two men. This was not a preacher persuading a sinner to make a decision for, or a commitment to Jesus. This is God Almighty saving a sinner by his sovereign irresistible grace, through the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The believing is the faith that God gives in regeneration. This is a work of grace that God does in the heart, not just in the head! The message was Jesus Christ from Isaiah 53—not points of doctrine. What the eunuch believed was, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

    In the preaching of Christ, the wondrous doctrines of God’s free grace are sovereignly unfolded and revealed by his Spirit to dead sinners. Believing on Christ is much more than an accumulation of doctrinal truth. Believing in the heart is knowing Christ, bowing to Christ, loving Christ, coming to Christ, and worshipping Christ in Spirit and truth. What he has done is glorious, but who he is, is more glorious. Who he is gives virtue to what he has done, and what he is doing. Nowhere in the Scriptures are we commanded to believe on what he has done, it is always to believe on the Son of God.

    I am saying this: Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is believing in a person with a new heart that God gives, a heart of faith. It is not just giving mental accent to some facts concerning this person. Believing with the heart only comes with the impartation of spiritual life, and this life is the indwelling of Christ by his Spirit—He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life (1 Jn 5:12).

    There is certainly no knowing Christ, or believing on him apart from doctrinal truth. Yet you can be certain, no one will ever know and believe truth apart from knowing and believing on Christ. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me (Jn 14:6). This truth is always concerning him! May God help us who preach, to preach Christ and him crucified! For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2).