Christ's formula requires. For it was spiritual truth, not natural, of which He spoke when He said, "If any man wills to do, he shall know." To work by this formula requires the exercise of faith. For faith is that attitude of the heart toward the doing of God's will which is evidenced in willing to do that will, no matter what it costs nor where it leads. This is the first step of faith. For faith is both an attitude and an act, the genuineness of which is proven by an activity. That is, it is an attitude of willingness toward the will of God, an act of surrender to the will of God, eventuating in an activity in continuing in the will of God. Therefore complete surrender of the heart and life to God's will as revealed in the Word, trusting the outcome to Him, is where faith begins.
And so let no man imagine that he has any real faith either in God or His Word who has not begun by willing to do, that he may enter upon the doing of, the will of God. Indeed, this is not simply the place where faith begins, it is also the only place where the presence of faith can be demonstrated. For this is the only possible way of distinguishing that intellectual attitude which simply assents to the truthfulness of the Word, from that genuine heart faith which actively reckons the Word to be true by surrendering the life to its requirements. This formula of Christ's, therefore, not only requires that the spiritual and natural faculties be distinguished, but it is the one scientific test by which they can be distinguished.
Then there is Paul's classification of these faculties just referred to. It is passing strange that so many even in our denominational schools have missed it.
