Pious Unbelief & Impious Faith - Glenn Conjurske
Pious Unbelief & Impious Faith
by Glenn Conjurske
There is a great deal of pious unbelief on the earth, and alas, but little faith of any kind. Faith, of course, is always pious, and unbelief always impious, but they often appear to be the reverse. Unbelief is often found quoting Scripture. It quotes Scripture to justify its own impious way. It quotes what God says to undermine what he is. It cites the word of God to prove that God cannot do what faith knows very well that he will do.
Faith, on the other hand, will often be seen setting aside the word of God, ignoring the divine pronouncements and prohibitions, and going straight forward through them all, to take the blessing from the hand of God.
But to understand this, we must understand the nature of faith. Faith is not merely believing what God says. Faith is that which brings us near to God. Faith is not mere confidence in God’s veracity. It is confidence in his love and his goodness. Faith is that which believes that God is for me, whatever he may seem to say or do to the contrary. Faith is that which perceives a father’s heart in the Almighty, and lays hold of that heart through his very frowns and threatenings. Faith believes that God is willing to bless, though it sees the flaming sword turning every way to guard the way to paradise. And that same faith, in its apparent impiety, will wrestle with God, by-pass his prohibitions, argue with his threats, dare the flaming sword, storm the gates of heaven, and take the kingdom of heaven by force. Scripture offers us examples enough of this sort, and we shall speak of them anon. Pious unbelief points to the flaming sword as the sure proof that it cannot be the will of God that we enter paradise—-and so stays outside. And thus the words, the will, the ways, the acts of God are made the excuse for continuing in the paths of self-will and sin.
Unbelief, it must be understood, is not a mere failure to believe what God says. It is a lack of confidence in him—-and especially in his love and goodness. It says he is “a hard man” (Matt. 25:24), and therefore declines to do his will. It expects no good from him, and therefore renders nothing to him. And pious unbelief can quote the Bible to prove all of this. It believes in his threatenings, but not in his promises. Or, to state the matter more clearly, it believes in his threatenings, but not in the purpose for which he gave them. Faith understands, as if by intuition, that THE VERY FACT THAT GOD THREATENS IS THE FULL PROOF THAT HE IS WILLING TO SPARE. The fact that he pronounces a judgement before he executes it is full proof that he is willing to revoke it—-else he would smite without warning. What then if the judgement has been pronounced? What if the decree has gone forth? Faith brushes aside the decree of God, and gets the blessing. It knows that there is implied mercy in every divine pronouncement of judgement. It lays hold of that mercy, though it must revoke the word which God has spoken in order to do so—-and great faith may go a great way in this business, as we shall see.
The men of Nineveh found it so. The first word—-nay, the only word—-which they heard from God was, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” There was no offer of mercy, but a simple declaration, in no uncertain terms, of the judgement already determined. Yet the men of Nineveh by faith laid hold of the implied mercy in that declaration. They, dark heathens that they were, had none of the assurance of faith, but could only say, “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” But faith they had, and repentance, and works meet for repentance, and by these they obtained mercy against the express declaration of God. And Jonah understood that the bare fact that he was sent to Nineveh with such a declaration was the proof that God wished to spare them. So when he saw them spared, “he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.” (Jonah 4:2). Jonah had preached in unmistakable terms that Nineveh was to be overthrown, and therefore it was of great concern to his reputation to see it come to pass. He would sit outside the city and watch it, to see the event. And he was “very angry” to see his own prophetic message “overthrown,” and the city spared. But God had no such concern. It was his delight to show mercy, and it mattered nothing to him if his decree must be overturned to do it.
But unbelief perceives nothing of this. If God says, “The wicked shall be turned into hell,” pious unbelief says, “Then it must be so”—-(for who hath resisted his will?)—-“Let us sin today, for we must be damned tomorrow.”
Pious unbelief is what we see in the wicked Ahaz in Isaiah 7. The enemies of Judah had purposed to subdue her, and set their own king in her. But God sent his prophet to meet the king of Judah, and say to him, “Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.” He then pronounces severe judgements against Judah’s enemies, but concludes with this warning to Judah: “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.” The prophet of God then offered to confirm the promise of God with a sign, saying, “Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.” To this the king replied, “I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.” This was pious unbelief—-quoting the commandment of God to excuse himself from taking anything from God’s hand.
When the disciples asked the Lord why they could not cast out the demon, he told them, “Because of your unbelief” (Matt. 17:20)—-unbelief in the willingness of God to bless. Yet pious unbelief would have said, “It was evidently not the will of God to cast out the demon.”
On the other side, faith lays hold of the love of God, and his consequent willingness to bless. No matter if the judgement has been already pronounced. No matter if the decree has already gone forth. Unbelief gives up in the face of such a decree. Faith only fights the harder. Thus Rahab, a cursed Canaanite, and an unclean harlot to boot, with the decree of extermination already gone out against her, yet laid hold of mercy, by faith. No matter that the iniquity of the Amorites was full. No matter that the day of divine forbearance had run out. No matter that the Israelites were commanded to make “no league,” “no covenant,” with the accursed Canaanites. Faith could go through all of that, and secure mercy even at the last hour.
One of the most beautiful examples of what I call impious faith is found in another Canaanite women, in the fifteenth chapter of Matthew, verses 22-27: “And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David: my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”
She wanted mercy, and she believed it was to be had from the Lord. No matter, then, that he walked on in the way, totally ignoring her pitiful cries. No matter that his divine commission shut her out. No matter that he spoke cold words to cast her hope down to the ground. No matter that he spoke again to crush her hope beneath his feet. No matter if she were a sinner and a dog. Faith went right on, through all of that. If he ignored her, she cried the more. If he spoke of his divine commission, she brushed it aside. If he pled the unfitness of giving the blessing to her, she argued with his words—-and got the blessing. What then? Did the Lord Jesus deny his commission? Did he do that which was “not meet”? Frankly, it matters nothing to faith if he did. Faith knows very well that God is not afraid to revoke his decrees in order to show mercy—-nay, that he delights to do so. Faith knows that God “will have mercy, and not sacrifice”—-though he himself has commanded the sacrifice.
C. H. Spurgeon, who believed without any question in the Calvinistic doctrine of “the decrees of God,” yet understood this impious faith well enough to be able to brush aside those supposed decrees. He entitled one of his sermons on this Canaanite woman, “How To Meet the Doctrine of Election.” In that sermon Spurgeon says, “Our Lord put before this woman something worse than the positive fact of the choice of Israel, he declared the negative side of the sacred choice. He said, `I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ It is very little that you and I who are ministers of the gospel have to do with preaching about what Christ is not sent to do. … Nevertheless, the Saviour did distinctly turn the blackest side of the doctrine to the woman, and say, `I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’
“What was worse in her case was that she knew that this election, as far as Christ had stated it, must exclude her; for he told her that he was not sent save to the house of Israel, and she well knew that she did not belong to that house. She was a Canaanitish woman, a native of Tyre and Sidon, and therefore distinctly shut out; and Jesus himself had told her so. That must have made the sentence fall like a death-knell on her ear. If the servants tell us such a thing as that, we can forget it, but if the Master says, `I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,’ then the matter ends in blank despair. The poor Canaanitish woman might very logically have ended her pleadings, saying, `What more can be done? I cannot go against the word from Christ’s own lip.’ Yet she did not so; but like a true heroine she pressed her suit even to the joyful end.”
One of the most striking examples of impious faith, setting aside the direct commandment of the Lord in order to obtain mercy, is found in the great Moses. When Israel had made and worshipped the golden calf, “the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people. Now therefore LET ME ALONE, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” (Ex. 32:9-14).
Here was the perfect opportunity for pious unbelief, and for the lukewarmness, laziness, selfishness, and lust which lie at the root of it. “The pope,” says William Tyndale, “vvolde curse xx. hundred thousande as blacke as coles, and sende them to hell for to haue soche a profre, and vvolde not haue prayed as Moses did.” Pious unbelief would have laid fast hold of the divine commandment, “let me alone.” It would have pled, in smug indifference, that God himself had forbidden him to pray for the people. God had determined to consume them, and what was he, that he should withstand God?
Faith, on the other hand, did not hesitate a moment to set aside the divine command. No sooner had God said, “Let me alone,” than Moses began to plead for the people. And with what wisdom and beauty he pleads! “Thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves,” says God. “Thy people, which thou has brought forth out of the land of Egypt,” says Moses. And, “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel!” No mention here of Jacob, the swindling supplanter, but Israel—-as if to say, “Remember the man who wrestled all night with you and prevailed! Remember the wee hours of that morning, when you conferred upon him the name of Prince with God!” God had said “Let me alone,” but Moses refused to comply. Moses paid not the slightest attention to this word of God, but set it aside as soon as it was out of his mouth. But God paid attention to the word of Moses, and established it. Moses pled effectually, which is the proof that God approved of his faith, however impious it might have appeared to anyone else.
Glenn Conjurske