The Bible tells us we cannot please God without faith (Heb 11:6), but how does a person get faith? Romans 10:17 tells us, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” That is obviously true, but is that the only way one gets faith? Actually, the Bible teaches there are two other ways in which one can get faith. Let’s look at a second way. In John 2:23 John says,
John 2:23 ¶Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.
In the same way that John said people saw the miracles and believed in Jesus, Paul says we can believe in God from just looking at the world around us (Ro 1:20-21). Seeing and believing is not the same as hearing and believing. Looking at the evidence of God in creation and believing is the same method of getting faith as people that saw the miracles of Jesus and believed.
A third way men can get faith is found in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul there speaks of spiritual gifts and says faith may be imparted as a direct gift from God.
1 Corinthians 12:7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:
11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.
The Holy Spirit can impart miraculous faith. Paul reiterates the fact of divine disposition of faith in his letter to the Romans:
Romans 12:3 ¶For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
Here Paul says God allots or apportions or distributes by measure faith to each one. This is a second testimony to the truth in 1 Corinthians 12:9 where He says the Spirit can impart faith.
Matthew 17:20 contains an illustration of the fact that God can simply give faith. In Matthew 17:20, Jesus said, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Jesus says a mustard seed has faith. How does a mustard seed get faith? Since a mustard seed cannot hear to get faith, the only way it could get faith would be for God to directly give it to it. It must be designed into the DNA of the plant. God gave the mustard faith. God can do the same to men.
At the present time faith principally comes by hearing, but as God moves into the pouring out of the Spirit in these last days, faith will come in other ways. It will come by seeing mighty works performed and will come by direct impartation of the Spirit of God. These things will augment the spoken word, as Hebrews says:
Hebrews 2:4 God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will
Two witnesses establish the truth of a matter. If a disciple of Christ speaks God’s word, he is one witness. When God gives signs and wonders and miracles to confirm the word, He is a second witness. Two witnesses establish truth, and the testimony to the truth causes men to believe.
