I recently had a great discussion with my 11 year old son. He was remarking about how the word ‘believe’ is so often tossed around in different ways. He mentioned that we believe there are certain planets, countries and stuff. And then people say they believe in Jesus. His point (in my words) was that it seems that to believe in Jesus means a little more than to just have some mental assent or agreement.
As I sat with him I was so encouraged with the depth of the question. On the face of it, it appears that he is wrestling with the demands and glory of Christ in the gospel. I love this type of wrestling from him.
While we talked and worked through things I tried to help him understand what we are getting at in terms of believing in Christ. We broke it up into two helpful terms: Trust & Treasure.
Trusting Christ
In order to be saved, to be in Christ, we must trust him. That is, we must come to the point where we see the futility of our works before God. We must see that we are altogether unclean, devoid of righteousness, and in fact unrighteous altogether before the unflinching bar of eternal justice (Is. 64.6; Rom. 3.10-19). In this pride smashing, somewhat painful self-awareness we realize that we need righteousness (Rom. 3.19).
Jesus is the one who comes as God in the flesh (John 1.14) to save his people from their sins (Matt. 1.21). He lives the perfect life that I could and would not. He obeys the Law perfectly (Gal. 4.4), loving his Father and neighbor perfectly (John 8.29) and ultimately gives his life as the payment for sinners like me and you (2 Cor 5.21; Gal. 3.13; Phil. 2.3-11).
In Christ, God extends the perfect blood and righteousness of Jesus as the only suitable payment for our sin and standing place before him. So our believing is present tense (John 3.16). It is a whole-souled trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone for us and our salvation.
Treasuring Christ
When God in Christ does this for a wretch like me how can I but praise him? How can he not be my heart’s chief treasure?!
To believe in Christ is to see him as our only hope in this life or the next, our soul’s chief delight, point of living, hope in dying, goal in everything! (Col. 3.1-4; Col. 3.15-17). To believe upon Christ is to have our soul’s satisfied in him (John 6.35). To treasure Christ is to hear the Father say of his Son, “This is my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1.11) and then repeat it back to him, “This is my beloved Savior, with him I am well-pleased!”
To combine trusting and treasuring I think we have the incorporation of our head, heart and will (or as the Puritans would say, “affections”). We see our brokenness, deficiency, and hopelessness without a mediator….then God graciously shows us Jesus. He is our life! By his dying and doing we are made alive, declared righteous, adopted, sanctified, kept, and will ultimately be presented as holy, blameless and beyond reproach before God almighty the righteous judge (Col. 1.21; Jude 24-25).
So we believe. We trust and treasure Christ Jesus our Lord. We lean upon his person and work with humble delight full of thanksgiving. He is victorious and so valuable to our souls.
