“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”
Revelation 14:12
What a beautiful verse. We may have read it and heard it one hundred times. And when we do, we draw inspiration and guidance as to what it means to belong to God and to be a part of His last-day people. This verse is straightforward. There’s nothing too shrouded in mystery here. Or so one might think.
It's that last phrase that gets me — the faith of Jesus. As I’ve listened to various speakers or read various literary pieces, in an attempt to explain the verse, I’ve noticed that often the preposition “of” is substituted for the preposition “in.” It’s such a tiny change. And, on the surface, it seems to make more sense to say “faith in Jesus” rather than “faith of Jesus.” There is a mountain of evidence in the Bible that faith in Jesus is imperative to our relationship with Him and, ultimately, to our own salvation. But I would propose that this particular verse is telling us something entirely different.
Having faith in Jesus is what we must have in order to gain fellowship with Him and gain eternal life. When we have faith in Jesus, we look unto Jesus, trusting Him with our cares, future, etc. When we have faith in Jesus, He can work in us and through us. There are numerous shining examples of this in the Bible. Take for example the many people that Jesus healed. There is the demon-possessed boy in Mark 9:14-29 whose father desperately cried out “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (verse 24). Then there is the woman with the twelve-year flow of blood who was healed by just a touch of Jesus’ robe (Luke 8:43-48). There is also the story of the Roman centurion who appealed to Jesus to heal his servant from afar (Matthew 7:5-13). Jesus always emphasized their faith as the essential component of their healing.
The term “faith of Jesus” implies that our faith should look like the faith that Jesus Himself had while on earth. So, what did that look like? The Bible is largely silent on the events of Jesus’ childhood. But we can imagine that His sinless life made him a target for unkind children. Through the trials of His childhood, He learned to have faith in His Father. All throughout His life, the devil tempted Him relentlessly. We have a window into this trial when we read Matthew chapter 4 where Satan dramatically tries all he can to coerce Jesus to misuse His power. Through that, Jesus trusted in His Father and the promises from Scripture.
The emphasis should come when we examine the closing scenes of Christ’s life. He had been a Man of prayer His entire life. He had learned the Scriptures well. He had an abiding relationship with His Father. And when His time came to bear the iniquity of us all, He was so practiced in exercising faith that His faith transcended feeling. In the garden, when He began to feel the crushing weight of the separation between Him and His Father, He exercised faith, placing His fate into the Father’s will. When false accusations against Him were spewed in court, “He opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7) because of His faith in His Father. When He was cruelly flogged, He had faith in His Father. When He fell under the weight of the cross; when the nails were driven through His flesh, He had faith in His Father. Because of this unwavering faith that transcended feeling, He was ultimately triumphant!
Call to Action
Faith in Jesus is looking upward to Him. Having the faith of Jesus is looking forward to the coming troubles and trials with the same kind of faith which Jesus took on during His own troubles and trials. It is adopting that same kind of faith as our own amidst fiery trials. And our faith in Him is what will lead to our ability to have the faith of Jesus. Being able to exercise the faith of Jesus requires an experiential knowledge of what it is to have faith in Him. This leads us to conclude that you cannot have one without the other. Being able to exercise the faith of Jesus requires having had faith in Jesus through all of life’s trials. And it is what will strengthen us through the trials to come just before Jesus returns. May we be found triumphant on that great Day having had the faith of Jesus in us!
All scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
