Normally, those who think of themselves as people of the gospel do not openly deny the necessity of the new birth. But what if we did? We do not have to imagine, for that is effectively what happened in the 18th and 19th centuries with the Sandemanian sect. As Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) put it, the Sandemanians believed that saving faith is nothing but “bare belief of the bare truth”.
This was an intellectualist view of faith that sat especially well with the rationalistic times of the Enlightenment, though Robert Sandeman himself had an apparently evangelical logic for his view. Seeking to uphold a salvation that is all of grace, he argued that faith is really a human work if it involves any active leaning of the heart upon God. Faith must, he concluded, be nothing more than the mind’s assent that the gospel is true. It is an acknowledgment, not trust.
Sandeman’s teaching may have persuaded some, but it concerned many more. Leading the criticism was Fuller, who responded with what was probably his magnum opus, Strictures on Sandemanianism, in Twelve Letters to a Friend (1810). Fuller argued that Sandemanianism failed to see faith as a fruit of regeneration. In other words, only the person whose heart has been renewed by the Spirit will ever come to true, saving faith.
Faith, then, cannot be a mere act of the mind independent of the heart. If it were, how would true faith be any different from nominal faith? The nominal Christian can mentally assent to the truths of the gospel, but that sort of belief is little different from the “faith” of the demons who “believe – and shudder!” ( James 2v19). Saving faith is an act of the heart as much as an act of the mind (Rom.10v9-10). To have faith in Christ means to come to Him, to trust Him and receive Him.
If Sandeman were right, the opposite of saving faith would be mere ignorance. Yet in Scripture, the reason people do not believe in Jesus is not simply ignorance. The reason for their unbelief is what they love: darkness rather than the light (John 3v19). The “mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God” (Rom. 8v7), and therefore the wicked refuse “to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thess. 2v10). So Jesus told the unbelieving Jews in His day that the reason they did not believe in Him was because they did not love Him (John 8v39-47; see Heb.3v12). Both faith and unbelief involve more (though not less) than knowledge and the mind.
The result of the Sandemanians’ mistake was a heartless faith, sure of its own orthodoxy but legalistic and ultimately idolatrous. Fuller saw that “conversion, on this principle, is not turning to the Lord. It professes, indeed, to love God; but it is only for our own sake.” Not loving God, it treasured the benefits of salvation rather than the Saviour Himself. Not appreciating the love of God, it fell into an emphasis on outward performance to the neglect of the heart. And given the emphasis on outward particulars, like Pharisaism, it became known for a cultlike favouring of shibboleths, closed to all who were not of their exact custom.
Today, many rightly bemoan the lovelessness, superficiality and spiritual hollowness they see spread all too widely across the church. Yet in our longing for a cure, we must not be seduced into thinking that superficial, pragmatic answers are the solution. A moral campaign for better Christian behaviour will not touch the roots of the problem. Richard Sibbes wrote that in his day, “there hath been more Spirit and more lightsomeness and comfort. … Why? Because Christ hath been more known.” The gospel of Christ’s redemption and the Spirit’s regeneration is not just a message for outsiders: it is our only hope if we are to see the renewal and reformation of the church in our day.
