In this verse genuineness is the noun and testing
is the verb. The goal is sincere faith; the process of proving it
is sincere is testing. The great preacher in the last century,
Donald Grey Barnhouse, gave a good explanation of the historical background of
the concept behind this passage.
In the ancient world there
was no banking system as we know it today, and no paper money. All money was made from metal, heated until
liquid, poured into molds and allowed to cool.
When the coins were cooled, it was necessary to smooth off the uneven
edges. The coins were comparatively soft
and of course many people shaved them closely.
In one century, more than eighty laws were passed in Athens, to stop the
practice of shaving down the coins then in circulation. But some money changers were men of
integrity, who would accept no counterfeit money. They were men of honour who put only genuine
full weighted money into circulation.
Such men were called “dokimos” or “approved”.
You may be one of those folks who doesn’t like
tests. Maybe it goes back to school
days. Or maybe it’s just that we don’t
care for painful or negative experiences.
After all, the background of the word has to do with the purifying of
precious metals and it required a furnace that would heat to upwards of 2000
deg. F. The truth is many times the
response to trials is to become angry at God for allowing such a thing; we
blame Him for our pain.
We would strongly insist that we should thank
God for the trials of faith. We should
thank Him for proving our faith now, in this life, rather than letting us wait
until we show up at the revelation of Jesus Christ and find our faith was
hypocritical rather than sincere or genuine.
Jesus Himself warned of such a danger in Mt. 7:21-23.
Let us be very clear. Faith in Christ is a simple matter. It is receive Him (John 1:12). It is not amassing enough works to make Him happy;
that is works and not faith (Eph. 2:8-9).
Faith believes what Christ has done in the cross and empty tomb and that
what He did has satisfied my need for the forgiveness of sin against my
Creator. We don’t try harder in order to have genuine faith in Christ. We simply trust Him. Either we have faith is Christ or we don’t. What the fiery trial does it show us what our
faith is like and it purifies our faith.
In fact, when we appear before Christ at His
judgment seat, the hottest of fires will be applied to the works of our lives
according to 1 Cor. 3:13: Each one’s work
will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by
fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. The fire we are encountering today does for
us what the furnace does for gold: it purifies (makes us clean) and it liquefies
(makes us moldable for God’s purposes).
Let us thankfully submit ourselves to His love.
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