It is easy to see that so vital a subject as 'faith'

would by a well -

known figure of speech, soon be used to indicate the thing

believed, and

there are seven references in the New Testament where 'The

faith' refers, not

to the act of believing, but to the body of doctrine which

faith embraced.

These references are as follows:

'A great company of the priests were obedient to the faith'

(Acts 6:7).

'He ... now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed'

(Gal. 1:23).

'Before faith came' (Gal. 3:23).

'One Lord, one faith' (Eph. 4:5).

'Some shall depart from the faith' (1 Tim. 4:1).

'That they may be sound in the faith' (Tit. 1:13).

'Earnestly contend for the faith' (Jude 3).

It is evident from the foregoing that faith stands for the thing believed.

It can be obeyed, preached, come, be left, be sound in, form part of a unity,

and be contended for.  In the passage, 'before faith came' (Gal 3:23) 'faith'

is set over against the dispensation of the law, which is likened to a

'schoolmaster until Christ'.  Faith, or the doctrine that constitutes 'the

faith' is conceived of as 'one', a whole, a unit in a unity, something that

can neither be added to nor subtracted from without dire consequences.  Jude

speaks of this faith as 'the faith which was once delivered to the saints'.

There is much that is implied by the two words 'once' and 'delivered'.  Jude

uses the word 'once' in verse 5, and an examination of that passage will help

us in understanding the import of verse 3:

'I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew (Gk.

eidotas apax knowing once) this, how that the Lord, having saved the

people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed

not' (Jude 5).

Writing on this verse Dr. Peile is quoted by Dr. Bloomfield as saying:

'If we be asked what is the reference made in eidotas apax, we answer

that, (1) we believe St. Jude's Epistle to have been addressed (a good

many years after the death of St. Peter and St. Paul) to the same

Hebrew element in the same Christian communities, scattered over the

face of Asia Minor, to which the Epistle to the Hebrews, and both the

epistles of Peter were written; (2) that St. Jude reminds them in verse

5 of what the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews had so impressively

urged upon them in chapter 3:7 -19, and in verses 6,7, etc.  of what

St. Peter had written in 2 Peter 2:4 -9, etc.; (3) that St. Jude, like

St. Peter (2 Pet. 3:15), has borne incidental and undesigned testimony

-- which, so far as it goes, makes for the prevailing opinion, that St.

Paul was the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews'.

When Jude said, 'Ye once knew this' he is but anticipating what he says

in verse 17, 'But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of

the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ'.

This is 'the faith once delivered to the saints'.

The apostle Paul

writing to the Corinthians said:

'I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received' (1 Cor.