There are two passages where the child of God is directed to resist the devil.  The context, however, in both passages warns him that it must be in utter dependence upon the power of God.  He must be wholly submitted to God and it must be done through a steadfastness of faith.  The passages are as follows:  “Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (Jas. 4:7).  “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:  whom resist steadfast in the faith” (I Pet. 5:8, 9).  And the faith principle is mentioned among the believer’s armor in Eph. 6:16 as the “shield of faith” by which all the fiery darts of the enemy are to be quenched.

Third:  True character may be realized by the power of God, in spite of the tendency of the fallen nature.  This character, however, is that which is directly promised by the power of God:  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self control” (Gal. 5:22, 23).  “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Eph. 5:9).  “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them:  because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (I Jno. 4:4).  Thus the true God-honoring character is seen to be the result of the power of God, and it is only possible to the one who has “ceased from his own labors and has entered into rest.”  “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith” (I Jno. 5:4).  This victory demands a constant exercise of faith.  Faith is never finished here, and any true progress in the Christian life is “from faith to faith,” and it is also said of the one whom God has constituted just, that he shall “live by faith.”

The same objection is often raised against the application of the faith principle as a means to the consummation of a victorious life, as is raised against the same principle for regeneration.  In this objection it is inferred that when this method is adopted, there is no adequate incentive or motive left for the individual.  Such objections arise from a misunderstanding of this truth.

It is useless to undertake the impossible in any case; and in the matter of salvation from the penalty of sin, the only work which it is possible for God to accept as the ground of redemption is that which is already undertaken and fully completed by Christ on the Cross.  By this finished work the believer is provided with a perfect standing before God, and is raised to the exalted position of an ambassador for Christ.  That privilege of service does not affect the grounds of his salvation, but opens to him the glorious possibility of rewards (I Cor. 3:9-15).  In the matter of salvation from the power of sin, the human will may be employed as an instrument through which the power of God may be manifested.  The following passages reveal how directly He proposes