Preface To The Second Printing
1. Must God Plead With God?
   
2. How The Spirit Leads
   
3. Physical Reinforcements of Faith
   
4. Jesus' Physical and Spiritual Death
   
5. Is There Merit in Pain?
   
6. The Six Days of Creation
   
7. Adding Guilt to Anxiety
   
8. Wine and The Disciple
   
9. Revolution or Evolution
   
10. I Am That Disciple
    
11. When People Disagree
    
12. Is Unity Based Upon Seven Doctrines?
    
13. Our Seven Sacraments
    
14. Instrumental Music
    
15. The Mood of Worship
    
16. Justified Then Sanctified
    
17. Is Christian Our Name?
    
18. The Lord's Table
    
19. Righteousness That Exceeds
    
20. Neither Destroyed Nor Nailed To The Cross
    
21. The Right of Self-Protection
    
22. A Tree of Error
    
23. God is Limited
    
24. You Are Here
    
25. God is In Charge
    
26. Hook's Points
    
27. Lamentations of A Mediocre Preacher
    

PHYSICAL REINFORCEMENTS OF FAITH

The title of this lesson may seem to express conflict. "For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). Sight includes the things which can be detected by the physical senses. Faith is mental, spiritual, and abstract. Isn't Paul saying that our lives are directed by the spiritual rather than the physical? Yes, but God has used, and continues to use, physical things to make our faith more substantial.

Those who make use of graven images and crucifixes in their buildings and who wear medallions and scapulars claim that such objects are merely reminders of spiritual things. In their case, however, they have come to venerate, and look upon, such things as having mystical, sacramental powers. Thus they have become a pitfall to them. We must avoid this danger but, in doing so, we should not fail to recognize and make use of physical reinforcements of faith.

The omnipresent God does not dwell in temples made by hands, but he used the Tabernacle and Temple to fortify the Israelites' faith in his presence. Victory in battle was at times attributed to God through the assurance of having the Ark present. God recognized that man interprets according to his earthly nature, and he made some accommodation to that tendency.

Jesus made use of saliva in healing three times (John 9:6; Mark 7:33; 8:23). He touched and laid hands upon persons ceremonially in healing. Evidently, Jesus did not consider such actions as detracting from his power, even though a person might attribute the miracle to the power of saliva or to a ritual. Those actions added a dimension of credibility.

We shall now give a few examples which show that faith may be reinforced by physical presence, physical actions, and physical symbols.

James invites the sick person to call the elders to his bedside for healing through anointing and prayer (James 5:14-16). Why call those men from their jobs or families to go to the sick room? Why not send word to each elder soliciting his prayers? Wouldn't their prayers be as effective in their homes? The answer must be that the physical presence of those men at the bedside adds a dimension to their prayers, both for the elders and the patient.

Why should they anoint the sick with oil? The oil had no curative powers. James says that the prayer of faith, not the oil, would be effective. The anointing would give more substance to their belief. The fact that some have accepted the anointing as a ritual conveying special power or have incorporated it in a sacrament for dispensing grace does not invalidate its purpose or use.

Why lay hands on the sick? Although some may think it was an effective ritual, it only gave extra vitality to faith through physical presence and action.

If you are very ill, you appreciate the visitor who assures you that he will be praying for you. You value it more if he prays for you while in your presence. It becomes more meaningful if he touches you or holds your hand while praying. And strength is added in proportion to the number of persons involved. Faith is bolstered by physical presence.

They appointed elders with fasting and prayer (Acts 14:23). Fasting, though not a ceremony commending special grace, might add a dimension of assurance to prayer. You may try this for yourself. When you have a truly deep concern to pray about, try fasting for a time and see if your faith is not reinforced.

No posture for prayer is prescribed in the Scriptures. A person may bow, kneel, or lift up hands, using the posture that would make his prayer seem more real. Mental prayers are acceptable, but an audible prayer may seem more effective to the one praying.

One may continue in faith and Christian service without assemblies, even as shut-ins do. But there is great strength in the reassurance of the physical presence of the spiritual body. God must have had that in mind in directing us to assemble.

Even our buildings may play a part in strengthening or weakening our faith. A building may say that we are confident, abounding, energetic, and enduring, or it may say that we are weak, indecisive, and unconcerned and that we may fold.

The invisible God made himself known in various ways. But earthly man has difficulty in feeling a fellowship with a Spirit. So, to bridge this

gap, the eternal Word became flesh. The incarnation gave more substance to faith. Because of it, we are assured that "we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses" (Hebrews 4:15). Being omniscient, the Word did not learn from experience. He already knew man. But his bodily suffering adds to our confidence.

Jesus bore our sentence of death. Our sentence for sin is death of the soul, not of the body. It is separation from God. Jesus made his soul an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10­12; Acts 2:27). He experienced that separation for us. We have little comprehension of such an experience because it is so abstract. But Jesus' physical suffering and death gave us an acceptable framework for understanding and believing in the atonement.

A renewed life is an essential evidence of our faith. Jesus chose the ritual of baptism symbolizing a death, burial, and resurrection to add concreteness to that faith.

The atonement is the basis of our hope. God wants us to keep belief in the atonement renewed in our minds continually. We may do this by private meditation at any time at any place. The Lord's Supper employs symbolic materials which can be touched and tasted to give more substance to our faith. Paul used the cross as a symbolic reminder of the atonement. Christian art uses many symbols constructively. Art was used in the Tabernacle and Temple. Symbolic art and venerated images are not to be confused with each other.

May we not rightly conclude that there are physical reinforcements of faith and that we may employ them to our own advantage? God sees us in our earthly surroundings and uses some of these earthly things to make our faith more concrete. We are social beings also, and God uses the physical presence of others to reinforce our faith.