FAITH IN FAITH? OR FAITH IN GOD?
The mistake many in the Positive Confession movement make today is to place their faith in faith. They declare that faith is a force and that words are the containers of that force of faith. So, if you speak forth in faith, the force of faith is released in your life. It is further declared that God used this force of faith when He spoke the world into existence (Genesis 1).
Those that propagate this teaching point to Hebrews 11:1 as proof of faith as a force: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The declare that faith is a tangible substance, the material from which God made the worlds. However, “substance” is properly defined as confidence assurance. The assurance we have in faith is the knowledge that God’s purposes and promise will never fail, even if we do not experience answers in our lifetimes. The confidence we have is that, “if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”
To validate their declaration of your confession releasing the force of faith in your life these often refer to Mark 11:23-24: “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” “See,” they declare, “you shall have whatever you say (or confess).”
Their emphasis is upon words. You must be careful what you confess. To confess negatively is to being down upon yourself something negative. If you declare that you don’t feel good today, you won’t feel good, because you will have what you say. If you declare that you feel good, even if you don’t, eventually you will feel good because you will have what you say. This is tragic. How terrible to live life having to weigh every word and thought. To live this way, is not freedom and prosperity, but rather, it is to live in fear and bondage to the things you confess.
The concept of words containing power has it’s origins in the occult and not in Christianity. The word “occult” is defined as hidden, and when we believe that words have hidden powers in and of themselves we are identifying with the occult and not with what the Word of God teaches.
One mistake that is made by those who use these verses to validate their declaration of your confession releasing the force of faith in your life is the failure to consider verse 22, “…Have faith in God.” (Mark 11:22). Jesus said that the faith of the believer was to be in God, not in his words or in his confession. Never in the scripture are we told to exercise faith in anyone or anything other than God.
Many in the Positive Confession movement declare that God used the force of faith to speak the world into existence. The Bible does indeed declare that the world was framed by the word of God, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” (Hebrews 11:3). His words convey His power. There is power in His words because He is God.
How has God spoken? “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…” (Hebrews 1:1-2). God has spoken to man in visions and in dreams. With Moses He spoke face to face (Numbers 12:6-8). He has spoken through angels, prophets and teachers. He has even spoken to us through his Son. Today, God speaks through the Holy Spirit, as in Acts 13:2, “…the Holy Spirit said, ‘Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’" (He spoke through the prophets who were in attendance). In every case (except with Moses) God spoke either through angelic agents or through human agents. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in our hearts, in circumstance, through others, and through the Word of God, the Bible. “…His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (II Peter 1:3-4).
God indeed spoke the worlds into existence. However, the point of this verse is that only through faith can we understand (truly know and comprehend) that God created the worlds.
Many in the Positive Confession movement point to Romans 4:17, “…God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did…”, declaring since God calls those things which do not exist as though they did, through Positive Confession we can do the same. However, we must consider the context. It is God alone who gives life to the dead; it is God alone who calls those things which do not exist as though they did. We do not have the authority or power to do so. This power is reserved for God alone. The context of the passage is that God called Abraham the father of many nations even though at the time he was without a child. God did this because He knew He would provide this child and that He would produce life out of death. Both Abraham and Sarah were physically unable to bear children, yet God in His power enabled them to do so, “…who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did…”
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