Articles
Right Belief Leads to Right Action
RIGHT BELIEF LEADS TO RIGHT ACTION
Hollis Miller
There is both a divine side and a human side to Christian faith. God is the author of the faith and men are the respondents. From the human side faith is composed of right belief and right action, both of which are legislated by God. That being the case, right belief may properly be thought of as the ground on which all else pertaining to faith stands. one may adopt a personally desireable moral code, a personally approved attitude, and worship in a personally satisfying manner, but if each is not governed by right belief each will be faulty.
Alexander Campbell spoke to the issue under discussion when he wrote, "Revelation has nothing to do with opinions or abstract reasonings; for it is founded wholly and entirely upon facts. There is not one abstract opinion, nor one seculative view, asserted or comminicated in the Old Testament or New... Facts, then, are the Alpha and the Omega of both Jewish and Christian revelations" (The Christian System Pg. 89) What God has daid and done He has said and done out of His own counsel, and love for the Lord willingly submits to both ( Read I JOHN 2:4; 2 JOHN 6; LUKE 6:46).
The teaching of Jesus that all men honor the will of the Father will remain an integral part of His teaching till the end of time (Matthew 7:21) How can it be otherwise? The Pharisees, Saul of Tarsus, and even idolators were all religious in their own way. But none of them were pleasing to God. For that reason they were required to change.
It is imperative that, when in the persence of the divine will, all men must consider themselves of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5). Where God has spoken, no action is right which does not harmonize with what He has said.
