Of Figs, Faith, and Doubt

Don: In the story of the Barren Fig Tree we have been discussing, Jesus taught that with enough faith and no doubt, not only could a fig tree be instantly withered but even an entire mountain might be thrown into the sea.

According to the Book of Hebrews, God gives each of us a measure of faith. Faith is what hardwires us to God, the “author and finisher” of our faith. Yet deep within us is the feeling that we are ourselves in some way responsible for the quantity and quality of our faith.

It is puzzling, however, that while even the tiniest amount of faith (as tiny as a mustard seed, Jesus said) could move mountains, we don’t see many mountains being moved. In truth, we don’t see any. Why not? Among the possible reasons:

1. We don’t have even a mustard seed of faith, in which case the measure of faith which God gives us is less than a mustard seed.
2. He does give us a whole mustard seed of faith but because of our poor stewardship we lose some of it.
3. Perhaps the passage is not to be taken literally, but metaphorically, in terms both of amount (mustard seed) and outcome (mountains moved).
4. It’s just a way of saying that it’s not our job to move mountains; that we’ll never have the required mustard seed of faith; that moving mountains by faith is strictly a divine attribute.
5. Faith cannot and ought not to be quantified. Perhaps Jesus meant that faith is always to be in connection with God, not something to be kept in one’s pocket, like a pebble—or a mustard seed—apart from God.
6. When Jesus talked about having faith and not doubting, perhaps he was talking about the divine, and was excluding all of Mankind from the very possibility of exercising the divine faith, since we find it impossible to have no doubt. We are weak and faithless; but for God, all things are possible.

Why would a generous God only give us half a mustard seed of faith? If he was going to give us any faith at all, ought it not to be enough to do something constructive with? Perhaps faith has so short a shelf-life—time-limited by our mortality—that there is no time to put it to constructive use.

Scripture tells us that faith needs to be continually replenished, that faith apart from a connection with God is barren faith, disconnected from its source of life. Faith, then might be organic, dynamic, living. It might need a continual source of renewal, a life force to which it must be connected. We might need to completely rethink our notions of what faith is.

Paul gave us both a definition of faith and a “faith hall of fame”:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. [The KJV calls it the “substance” of things hoped for, others the conviction, others the reality, of things hoped fr. So it is described sometimes as tangible, sometimes as intangible.] For by it the men of old gained approval.

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave orders concerning his bones.

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land; and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned.

By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.

And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:1-39)

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

If we are to take faith seriously then we need to study the stories of each of these faith hall-of-famers. It is easy to see why some are in the hall, but not the majority, of whom most had serious character flaws and showed evidence of serious doubt. Who doubted more in Scripture than Gideon? Sarah laughed at God when He told her she would have a son, yet she is listed in the faith hall of fame. What of the quality of faith of David, a murderer and an adulterer? And what are we to make of Jephthah, who, in exchange for victory over the Ammonites, promised to sacrifice as a burnt offering to God whoever came out to meet him upon his return. “Whoever” turned out to be his only child, a virgin daughter. Two months later, he kept his ghastly promise to God. Then there is Barak, who had a soldier drive a tent nail through the temple of a sleeping enemy king. What on earth are people like this doing in the faith hall of fame? Or have we misunderstood the true meaning of faith?

Consider the story of Rahab:

Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there. It was told the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.” And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. It came about when it was time to shut the gate at dark, that the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued them on the road to the Jordan to the fords; and as soon as those who were pursuing them had gone out, they shut the gate.

Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Now therefore, please swear to me by the Lord, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father’s household, and give me a pledge of truth, and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” So the men said to her, “Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the Lord gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.”

Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall. She said to them, “Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not happen upon you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way.” The men said to her, “We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father’s household. It shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be free; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him. But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be free from the oath which you have made us swear.” She said, “According to your words, so be it.” So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

They departed and came to the hill country, and remained there for three days until the pursuers returned. Now the pursuers had sought them all along the road, but had not found them. Then the two men returned and came down from the hill country and crossed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they related to him all that had happened to them. They said to Joshua, “Surely the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before us.” (Joshua 2)

The story is puzzling. Why were spies sent to the city, when Joshua knew that it would not need to be taken by force? And why were the spies so inept? They were instantly recognized as spies. They seem to have been sent, like grace, as a symbol of faith; but along with the queen of faith in the story, Rahab, they undertake a duplicitous, lying, extortionate scheme of escape.
This seems to be more about faithlessness than about faith. Rahab is a whore, a liar, a schemer, and a traitor. Many apologies have been written to try to sanitize her traits, but I prefer to accept her traits as presented in the story. We are all Rahab, all faithless, doubting sinners in need of God’s grace. As we discuss them, we will see ourselves in all the characters in the faith hall of fame. All this being so, might it be that faith is not about us, but about God? Do we need a paradigm shift in our very concept of faith?

The scarlet cord in the Rahab story is another symbol of God’s grace, reflecting the blood on the doorposts of the Israelites during the Exodus, red-belted sash worn by the rabbi on the Day of Atonement, and the blood from the hands of Jesus on the cross flowing down from heaven to earth. This suggests that the faith in the story is about God and about a way of escape, not about the frail, flimsy faith of a treacherous, lying whore. As we look at the stories of other faith hall-of-famers, we may obtain a better perspective on grace and God’s purpose.

Seeing no miracles in our lives—no miraculous cures, no mountains moved—we are inclined to beat ourselves up for our lack of faith, but that may be because we have the wrong understanding of what faith is really about.

Donald: Confidence seems to be a factor. Some people are very confident in their faith; others, less so. Are these signs of strength and weakness, or merely reflections of different personalities?

David: The Judaeo-Christian seems to view faith as something to be proactively pursued and developed, whereas to the Daoist (at least, this Daoist!) faith is passive. It is part and parcel of the inaction Daoism recommends. The Way just is. You really can see it. You might not understand it, but you cannot deny it, and you cannot ultimately control it.

Brother Maycock: To me, and in my experience, faith is really trusting God. If people like Rahab can have strength and faith in Christ, surely we can too. We develop faith through a process of conquering and never doubting. Doubt is sin. We are supposed to be so close to Christ that we don’t doubt. You have such strength in Christ that you know Christ is with you. You know that the holy spirit is with you. You know that will not doubt. When you doubt and waver, you are saying you don’t trust God. Faith is only achieved through trust, never doubt. When you get to heaven, your character will improve steadily. You never stop developing a perfect character.

Kiran: God used organic seed rather than an inorganic object such as a grain of sand as His metaphor for faith. A seed embodies its own future development—but only provided that God gives it soil to germinate in and rain and sunshine to grow in. All the farmer—the owner of the seed—has to do is place it in the soil. Even if it is barren, rocky soil, it is likely to germinate, though it may not survive long. I think Jesus used the seed analogy to show us that there is nothing for us to do—God takes care of everything. Jesus took our burdens from us. There is nothing we can do to make the seed grow. God takes care of it. We can’t help but doubt ourselves. I can only have faith that Jesus will nurture the seed of my faith and help develop my character. All I have to do is take the chance.

Jay: We tend to view faith as something to be actively worked on. Rahab’s faith or doubt in God is hard to discern. What we do know is that Rahab believed that Joshua’s God was so powerful He parted the Red Sea, so she had no doubt Joshua’s army could come and take Jericho with such a powerful God backing them. In essence, her “faith” was a necessary survival tactic. Or perhaps she saw it as a way to ally herself with such a powerful God so she could harness His power. I wonder if this is the type of faith of the other faith hall-of-famers? Gideon sought to test Him. But ultimately faith may be just belief in the power of love and goodness.

David: Faith in the existence of God is one thing, but faith in the acquisition of divine power is something else entirely. It leads to all sorts of problems, including the old philosophical problem of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, if two people with divine power are in conflict. My mustard seed of faith lets me move a mountain, but your mustard seed of faith lets you prevent me from moving the mountain. So then what? We can’t possibly resolve such contradictions. I am at a loss to understand why Jesus would link faith to power rather than to God, unless he meant to link it to faith in God’s power to move mountains. Unfortunately, that is not what he said.

Don: It is the natural human condition to link faith to power. We pray for miracles, for healing, relief from suffering, financial stability, to fix broken relationships, and so on. It’s in our nature. No-one wants to serve a God who doesn’t have that power, but when the power is not evident, then we put it down either to God’s will or our own lack of faith—which lack Jesus appeared to confirm. It often leads to heartache and doubt.

Owen: There’s always doubt in everything we decide. It’s in human nature. That’s why we will never throw a mountain into the sea—because we would doubt it.

Brother Maycock: Once you come to Christ, he erases your doubt. If you doubt, you insult Christ. People don’t heal because they eat non-vegan food and unhealthy pop which is the cause of their disease. God might heal them but they go right back to doing the things that caused their disease in the first place. So faith without works is death. If we pray to God we must act on it too. Faith without works doesn’t work. Doubt does not work. As a father, I would be insulted if my son doubted me. We cannot doubt Christ.

Don: The problem is that Scripture gives us a very clear example of people (Zaccharias and his wife) who are as faithful as can be,…

They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. (Luke 1:5)

…yet who doubted God’s power to enable them to have a baby:

Zacharias said to the angel, “How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.” (Luke 1:18)

So the idea that we cannot doubt is not supported by Scripture.

Brother Maycock: When I set out to do something for the Lord, such as when I go as a missionary on a foreign mission, I cannot have doubt. Your mission may seem impossible, but with faith, things move forward. This is different from Zacharias’ situation. He was not setting out to do something for the Lord. If I am giving Bible study to someone and have doubt that the person cannot be reached, then indeed that person will not be reached. I cannot have doubt.

Kiran: I was a Hindu, and got my Hindu sister to become an Adventist too after I converted. We prayed God to find her a good Christian husband, but in the end she married a Hindu. My prayers and fasting for a week did not work.

David: You have to accept that God’s will will be done. By far the vast majority of people on earth are not missionaries for Christ or anything else. They are just ordinary people trying to deal with life as it unfolds for them. But they are no less a concern for God than the handful of missionaries out working for Christ. The issues of faith and doubt apply universally and have universal conditions. One of the most important of these is that when it comes to the ultimate existential questions, neither faith nor doubt can be grounded on the intellect. We cannot think our way into faith nor think our way out of doubt. All we can do is accept them when we have them. Accept that there is a God and that God’s will will be done. Accept that we are sinners—always were, always will be. This is not difficult. What is difficult is to turn it into an intellectual exercise; to say that it takes two weeks of fasting to get a Christian brother-in-law; that one week won’t cut it.

Donald: It seems critical to understand this issue, given how devastating doubt can be to faith. The one thing in which we can have confidence is that God is faithful. We cannot have such confidence in ourselves. Our own faithfulness is a matter for the individual. It would be tragic to lose faith in God because of someone else’s opinion that we lack it, as happened in the case of Elizabeth, whom we heard about last week. When we pray, we need to understand that there may be many things concerning our prayer of which we are unaware, or that we may have forgotten to mention in our prayer. We need to accept that only God’s faithfulness can be relied upon. Our faithfulness runs the gamut, from doubt to arrogance.

Brother Maycock: The three Hebrew worthies went into the fire unconcerned whether God would deliver them or not. They had no doubt. They had faith. When Paul lay dying, he had faith. Doubt is sin in such circumstances. When God says he will deliver us, we must have no doubt on that score. Everybody has to be a missionary, to be an example for Christ, to save souls, to reach out to help someone, as part of our daily lives. Faith is going into the fiery furnace regardless of not knowing whether one will be delivered or not. Faith enables martyrs to sing at the stake. The authorities kept people away from Paul’s execution because they were afraid his faith would shine and win converts. Satan stopped the persecution because he realized the martyrs would defeat him.

Kiran: It’s up to God, what He does. If we have absolute faith that He will do something and He does not do it, it destroys our faith.

Brother Maycock: Our goal is not to ascend to heaven or avoid hell. Our goal is to serve God because we love Him. If we have any other goal, we are lost.

Robin: It’s our natural, sinful, human condition to expect a “Yes!” from God in answer to our prayers. We are surprised at the selection of Rahab, a prostitute, as a faith hall-of-famer. We would be surprised if the Michigan Adventist Conference, in need of 12 missionaries, chose them from among uneducated fishermen. We would probably not expect the Pharaoh to choose a Hebrew as his adopted son. We would not look among shepherd boys for the first king of our new country We would expect a boy sold by his brothers into slavery later to redeem them. We would not expect an octogenarian couple to be chosen to bear the child intended to lead to the Son of God. These things make no sense to us, but they must make sense to God. We can’t see the whole picture He sees.

Chris: Should we equate prayer with faith? And in the story of Rahab and the other faith hall-of-famers, where—in what—is faith placed? Is it in God? In Man? In an action (if so, what?)

David: The criminal on the cross next to Jesus who acknowledged his sinful past was assured of entry to the kingdom of heaven. I don’t think he made a statement of faith, yet he exhibited faith simply by virtue of recognizing that he lacked the goodness that Jesus had.

Brother Maycock: That was true faith. Here was a man reviled and spat upon, yet Jesus loved him. He recognized that love. Even the centurions saw it, and thus had faith. The disciples did not. they were too afraid.

David: As I read it, that incident during the crucifixion did not focus on Jesus. The repentant criminal focused on himself. He assessed his own history of sin and regretted it. That was what assured him of entry to the kingdom of heaven. It wasn’t because he was nice to Jesus.

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