Here is the answer, then. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the word of God. From this, the false teaching in question has inferred that faith always comes when a person hears the word of God. But the verse does not say any such thing. In context, the verse is talking about the preaching of the gospel. As Paul writes, "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" (Romans 10:14). But nowhere is it suggested that everyone who hears the gospel will believe and thus be saved.

Salvation comes when a person believes the gospel, and a person can only believe the gospel when he finds out what the gospel is and what it says. Thus someone must go preach the gospel so that people might hear it. But the point is not that everyone who hears the gospel will become a Christian. Still less is Paul suggesting that the more a person hears, the more faith he is guaranteed to receive. The false teaching in question confuses how faith is usually facilitated or "delivered" (hearing) with what actually causes a person to believe what he hears.

So what causes a person to believe the word of God when he hears it? The Bible teaches that both faith and unbelief are controlled by God. It teaches in numerous places that a person refuses to believe because God actively works in his mind to harden his heart (John 12:39-40). So a person can hear the word of God everyday for half a century, but unless God sovereignly grants him faith to believe what he hears, he will remain in unbelief.

The kind of conviction that comes from nothing more than prolonged repetition could very well be the effect of brainwashing, for a lack of a better term. It is true that there can be a relationship between continuous exposure to the Bible and an increase of faith, but right now I am referring to mere repetition without the work of the Spirit. If the kind of faith that the Bible talks about can come this way, then the most effective form of evangelism would be to kidnap the unbelievers and lock them into a room where the Bible is played on loud speakers all day and all night. There would be no need for prayer, for persuasion, or for the Holy Spirit.

But again, the resulting conviction would be the result of mere brainwashing, and the profession of faith a mere parroting of what has been heard, similar to how an insane person might mindlessly mutter some of the phrases that he overhears or that are fed to him by others. There would be no genuine belief in the promises of God, but the conviction would serve only as the lifeless and thoughtless replacement to the person's previous beliefs that have now been forcibly short-circuited by the process. The person might feel convinced, but there can be no power and no salvation in this kind of "faith."

True faith is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). In 1 Corinthians 12:9, Paul refers to the kind of faith that is a special manifestation of the Spirit. From its mention in 1 Corinthians 13:2 – that is, in the context of spiritual manifestations – we understand that it is this kind of faith that moves mountains. Just as faith to believe the gospel for salvation is sovereignly granted by God to whomever he chooses, this special manifestation of faith is also granted "just as he determines" (1 Corinthians 12:11).

This biblical understanding of faith returns the fulfillment of Mark 11:23 to the sovereign hand of God. In the process, it destroys the false teaching in question without compromising the principle taught by Jesus – that if we have faith, we will have whatever we say. The difference is that whether we have faith, or whether we have this kind of faith, is entirely up to God. He might deliver it to us by means of his word, but hearing his word does not guarantee this kind or level of faith.

Our faith depends on the work of the Spirit, who applies the word of God to our hearts and convinces us of its truth, giving us confidence of its effect, power, and relevance. The above commentators would be relieved that I have provided a legitimate way to explain how what Jesus says would not happen. But I have also explained how it could happen – it will happen when God grants the faith. So it remains for the commentators, or those who think like them, to assert that God will never grant this kind of faith. However, there is no biblical evidence for this, and if God would never grant this kind of faith even in principle, then this would render Jesus' statement pointless. Thus it appears that the suggestion, that God would never grant this kind of faith even in principle, once again comes from nothing other than unbelief.

(to be continued)

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