The Faithful Confession

The Apostle Paul wrote, “And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak.” (2 Corinthians 4:13).

It is important to understand who Paul is quoting when he says it is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke.” He is summarizing a Psalm that David wrote. The Psalm is about David being delivered from the fire of affliction.

In part David had written, “I was brought low, and He saved me… You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 116).

David was sharing that God had saved his life, and because of this salvation he would speak of his deliverance from his enemies. Paul himself was stating that since it was written in scripture that God delivers those who trust in him, he would confess his faith and trust that God would deliver and rescue him as well.

It is important to understand a key part of faith being noted here, to confess. This means to agree with what is found in scripture. It is more than a mental assent, it is rather a belief that flows from the heart and then is vocalized from our mouth.

Faith comes by hearing, and we need to hear words of faith spoken from our own mouth into our own ears as much as we need to hear words of faith spoken by others.

In a sense Paul was saying “It is written, therefore I believe it, therefore I will confess it.”

Paul stood on a firm foundation that if God be for you, then who can be against you?

Read the words of the lion of a preacher Charles Spurgeon, who wrote well over a century ago:

“I could not have spoken thus if it had not been for my faith: I should never have spoken unto God in prayer, nor have been able now to speak to my fellow men in testimony if it had not been that faith kept me alive, and brought me a deliverance, whereof I have good reason to boast.”

Spurgeon would then note that “the most powerful speech which has ever been uttered by the lip of man has emanated from a heart fully persuaded of the truth of God.”

Spurgeon, like David, experienced God’s hand of deliverance, and therefore he confessed his own faith loudly and with strength, knowing that his faith was a link in a chain of men and women who for centuries would also proclaim that God is faithful.

Five hundred years ago Joseph Caryl wisely proclaimed, “The tongue should always be the heart’s interpreter, and the heart should always be the tongue’s suggester; what is spoken with the tongue should be first stamped upon the heart and wrought off from it.”

Faith is founded upon the testimony of scripture. That testimony then marinates in our own lives until we can say with our mouth, “I read it, I lived it, I know it, therefore I confess it.”

Truly “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).