THE MAN OF FAITH - HIS JUSTIFICATION
[p. 247] THE MAN OF FAITH — HIS JUSTIFICATION
The freshness with which the history of Abraham comes before us in these days is remarkable, when you think of the great period of time which has elapsed since these things occurred. Looked at in a human point of view it is a wonder, but in the divine point of view it is no wonder, because the God that dealt with Abraham is the God that we have to do with, He is the living God, and His principles do not vary; we may change, but God does not.
I want, as the Lord may enable me, to point out what comes before us specially in this chapter, in the course of God’s dealings with Abraham; and my main point is this, that Abram by faith got a link with the God of resurrection; and if we want divine light our souls must be with the God of resurrection, the God who is presented to us in the gospel. You need to have the sense in your soul that resurrection is the great principle of God’s acting for man’s blessing; it must be so, because everything in this world is dominated by sin and death; and if God is to bring anything out of the wreck and ruin, the power in which He must act is that of resurrection. If you want scripture to confirm this; read at your leisure 1 Corinthians 15. There you get the power of resurrection coming in, first Christ is raised, then, in regard to the saints at the present time, “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality”, and “then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory”. That is millennial, it is a quotation from the prophet Isaiah; and the chapter proves that [p. 248] this cannot take place until after the resurrection, or quickening, of the saints of this present time: when that has taken place, then death will be swallowed up in victory. My point now is to show how, even at this early stage of the world’s history, a link was formed between Abram’s soul and the God of resurrection; and then, when once that had come to pass, we see in the latter part of the chapter that Abram had in his soul to go into the experience of death. And I venture to say that no man could accept death if his soul had not first a link with the God of resurrection. That is brought out in Romans 4 and 6. There the soul is linked by faith with the God of resurrection, “We believe in him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (chapter 4), really on the same principle as Abraham, and then in chapter 6 we accept death. Romans 3 shows the divine basis, that is, the declaration of God’s righteousness, and Romans 4 shows the principle and power of God’s actings, that is, resurrection; and if you want to be conscious of blessing, and to know what God has established for man’s blessing in the Lord Jesus Christ, your soul must be linked by faith with the God of resurrection.
Beloved friends, it is a most amazing thing to think that while in one’s estate as a man down here, death is on the body (because, as to the letter of it, we are not free from death), yet the soul is in the light of resurrection. And the practical effect of it is that you will not care to remain very much longer in the scene of death, your anxiety will be to be free of its power, and to this end you will accept death.
I brought before you last week the beginning of God’s dealings with Abraham, the first point being the call of God, which is simple; God was not in the natural things, and therefore when He was about to reveal Himself to Abram He calls him out. Since [p. 249] the time that sin came into the world, separation from evil has been God’s unvarying principle, because God was not in the evil. The world had practically become apostate, and the principle of God was calling, and calling involves separation. The gospel is the call of God, but it is the call of God to separate from evil. What Peter expressed in his preaching was, “Save yourselves from this untoward generation”. It is separation from evil. Then we saw further, in connection with chapter 12 two great points: (1) the determined purpose of God to bless, (2) that God would dispose of the earth as He saw fit. When law came in, it brought a curse upon man; but God had anticipated the law in making known His purpose to bless. God reveals Himself in that light as the One who is bent upon blessing. The other point is also momentous. The earth was not man’s, but God’s, though God intended it for man’s enjoyment; but God would dispose of the earth as He saw fit. I think that these were the first great principles which were enunciated in the case of Abram, and were the beginning of God’s ways as the God of glory; Stephen says that “the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham”. That was the beginning of God’s ways, not as the God of creation, but as the God of glory.
I did not dwell upon the intervening chapters, 13 and 14. I touched upon the fact that Abram in going down to Egypt was hardly acting in faith. He got into trouble there, and it is very significant that in Egypt he had no altar. But in chapters 13 and 14 he has come back from Egypt, and now we find that before he gets further light from God he is subjected to two tests. It is an unvarying principle in the ways of God with us, that if God gives us light we are bound to be tested; and you will not get more light until you have been tested in [p. 250] regard to the light which you already have. I can speak pretty surely in regard to it, because we see the principle in the word of God continually, and I think it is verified in one’s own history.
The first point in which Abram was tested was in connection with Lot, and the test was whether Abram would assert himself, whether he would stand upon his rights; and rights, too, which he had by the promise of God. It is a very dangerous thing when a Christian asserts himself. Abram did not assert himself; he gave full range to Lot, Lot was to take whichever way he liked. Lot did assert himself in a certain sense, he took his own course, chose what he would, and got into the gate of Sodom; he had seen Egypt and was attracted, I suppose, by the similarity of the plain of Sodom to Egypt. But Abram answered to the test, and the consequence is that God comes to him and tells him to lift up his eyes to survey the land in the length and breadth of it, and God renews the promise to him. In chapter 14 we find another test. There, as I understand, the test is whether Abram would be beholden to the powers of this world. And these are two severe tests if you think of them. I wonder which one of us has not been accustomed to look to the world for advancement or recognition in some way? Abram was, in a certain sense, a great man, for God had greatly blessed and enriched him, and he had to do with the kings of this world, being drawn into conflict on behalf of his nephew Lot. But the question was raised, would he be beholden to the kings of this world? and we find that he would take nothing “from a thread to a shoe-latchet”. He would not allow that the King of Sodom should make him rich. I think it is important to see how the grace of God enabled Abram to overcome in both tests; he would not assert himself, being simply content to be in the hand of God, and,
[p. 251] on the other hand, he would not be made rich by the kings of this world.
He had been blessed of Melchisedec after the return from the slaughter of the kings; he had his reward in that way from God, and it is after that the King of Sodom comes to him and proposes to him to take the spoil. Abram refuses on the ground that no one should say, I have made Abram rich; he was enriched by the blessing of the Lord. Many people run after the wealth of this world; but you may depend upon it that the blessing of the Lord is true riches. It was so to Abram, he had the goods of this world, but what really enriched him was the blessing of the Lord.
Now we come to this chapter 15, in which we get what I may call a very considerable accession of light (Genesis 15: 1 - 6). “After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed; and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them, and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness”. In connection with that, I will call attention to the end of Romans 4: “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, before him [p. 252] whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were; who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken. So shall thy seed be ... being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification”.
Now, beloved friends, it is plain enough from the beginning of chapter 15 that the soul of Abram was linked with the God of resurrection, that is, that Abram regarded God in a light outside of all that is natural. We can understand how a pious man would connect God with all that is natural, because God is the God of creation; but the soul of Abram was by faith in the light of the God of resurrection. I quite admit that there was to be a further test. At this time Abram was eighty-six years old, and he had to wait till he was ninety-nine for the fulfilment of God’s promise; but the principle comes out here which comes out still more clearly when he was about an hundred years old, “he believed God, and he counted it to him for righteousness”. And how did he believe in God? He believed in God who quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were; his soul apprehended Him in that light. He had not looked simply in a natural way for a child; he was childless, there was no hope in nature, and he raises the question as to how he was to inherit, for Eliezer, the heir of his house, was a stranger; so that Abram did not look for the accomplishment of God’s promise in a natural [p. 253] way, but his soul was linked with God, who is above nature. It means this to me, that Abram apprehended a scene outside of this scene, a scene which will be brought into presence in the world to come. It is certain that when sin came in and death on man, this world was spoiled for God, though God has borne in patience with it for thousands of years, and has worked out His ways here. In fact, so terrible is its condition that when Christ died all were dead, the condition of things generally was very much analogous to that of the flood; there was one family covered in the ark, and death was upon all else. And so when Christ died, all were dead, by His death all were proved to be under death. But from the very outset God had had another world before Him, what is spoken of in the Epistle to the Hebrews as “the world to come”; which, says the apostle, is not put under angels, but under the Son of man. The great principle of God’s actings in view of the world to come was that God would be known as the God of resurrection, and that man would be accepted on the principle of faith; man’s soul would have light with regard to God, and he would thus be linked with the God of resurrection, the God who quickens the dead, and calls the things which be not as though they were.
I want you to see how these principles run through scripture, so that the principles which are brought out in the Epistle to the Hebrews are the principles which come out here in regard to Abram. “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness”. I understand by this that Abram was justified in the eye of God in view of the world to come. That I believe to be the great idea of justification, that God counts a man righteous in view of the world to come. In a certain sense it is a small matter if I am justified with regard to this world, but it is a very important point to me that [p. 254] I should be justified with regard to God’s world. I cannot lay too much stress on the great importance of the soul having to do with the God of resurrection. Resurrection opens up the sphere of God’s dealings, Christ raised again from the dead was the beginning of that new sphere which God has opened up in the power of resurrection; and if there is not a sense of that with us I do not think that we shall make very much progress in our souls. If you want to have to do with the Lord, where is He to be found? It is in the sphere of resurrection that the Lord is known. I do not think that the Lord interferes in human circumstances and that kind of thing down here. He has been into them, but now He is not known after the flesh, and if known at all, it is in the sphere of resurrection. When you are baptized, you are baptized to His name, to His death, because we have to know Him in the sphere of resurrection. I know God as the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who has operated in that way, and I know the Lord in that blessed sphere. There it is, too, that we enjoy peace with God, and favour and reconciliation, and victory over death — “grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life”. It is all in the sphere of resurrection; it is outside of what is here, and depends upon the apprehension in the soul of God’s power, and of the Lord Jesus Christ as the One whom God has raised again from the dead. We all have to do with the things of this world, in passing through it; but the delight into which God has brought us is in the knowledge of Himself, whose righteousness has been vindicated and established, and who, in virtue of the vindication of His righteousness, has displayed Himself to us in His power as the God of resurrection. And if we have the light of the God of resurrection we come into the line of Abram, for even in those early days the soul of [p. 255] Abram had a link with the God of resurrection: “he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness”. Abram was troubled for the moment as to the way in which God was going to fulfil his promises, but God is not limited; death limited man, but not God. God “quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were”. Many people in the world seem almost to think that God is limited. Man cannot go beyond nature or death, he is himself limited, and in his mind would impose upon God the limits which bind himself.
Now I desire to turn to the other side of the picture, and to show how, having this link with the God of resurrection, that is, with God in that character, everything here really has to go down into death, so that God should take everything as it were out of death. I think that point comes out in the last part of the chapter. “And when the sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward they shall come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. And it came to pass that when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates”.
What follows upon Abram being accounted [p. 256] righteous is that God talks to him again about the inheritance. And it is a curious thing that in scripture inheritance is commonly associated with the gospel. There are two things which the gospel proposes to bestow upon man, forgiveness of sins and inheritance. You will see this if you look at the commission which the Lord gave to Saul; he was to go to the Gentiles and to open their eyes, that they might turn from darkness to light, and from Satan’s power to God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins and “inheritance amongst them that are sanctified by faith which is in me”. In the chapter before us when the point arrives in Abram’s history that he is accounted righteous, then it is that God speaks again about inheritance. It must be so. Supposing I had forgiveness of sins, and God’s grace terminated there, what have I got? God must give me something or else I am left a bankrupt; I might have my debts forgiven, but I have no capital. What God does is this; He not only gives me forgiveness of sins, but He gives me inheritance. He gives me inheritance because He cannot as yet give me possession. This seems a strange thing to say; but I think that it is the truth, and for this reason, that though the inheritance is purchased it is not yet redeemed. And inheritance manifestly refers to the world to come, just as justification refers to the world to come. But then it is plain that in the present God gives you the Spirit as the earnest of the inheritance; He cannot yet give you the inheritance, but He gives you the pledge of it until the inheritance is redeemed.
Abram here raises the question as to how he is to know that he shall inherit. Now the answer to that is to my mind most remarkable. Abram in the first place has to prepare certain things, to take certain animals and birds, and he divides the animals in two, but not the birds. I suppose it is [p. 257] a figure, not exactly of atonement, but of the death of Christ in another light, for it is in the death of Christ that God has given, as it were, the confirmation of His covenant. But that is not all. A deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a horror of great darkness fell upon him; Abram had to go down into death in spirit. And the next thing is that God makes known to him that his seed would, figuratively, go down to death. They were to be brought up out of Egypt into the land, but they could not have it for 430 years, and in the meantime they would have, in a certain sense, to go down to death. Egypt for the moment meant death to them as a people — they were lost to sight there for the time being. It prefigures, in a way, what has taken place in the present time, viz., that Israel is lost in the dust of the earth, but God is going to bring them up out of it. You will remember the vision shown to Ezekiel of the dry bones, and what struck the prophet with such amazement was that the bones came together, and flesh came upon them, and sinews, and they became living men. It is a representation, or figure, of what God will effect in regard to Israel; He will bring them up from the dust of the earth, from the state of death in which they are nationally. “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”. And the sleeping is prefigured here in the seed of Abram going down to Egypt to sojourn, they would be lost to view in Egypt, but God would bring them out of it. And all God’s ways are bringing man out of death, just as it was here set forth figuratively with Abram and his seed. But the most wonderful thing is this, that when the sun went down a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between the pieces. What did that mean? It is a way we read of in scripture of confirming a covenant; a calf was divided in twain, and the parties to the covenant passed between the pieces. Now God [p. 258] adopted that way in regard to Abram here, and the object of it was that the covenant might be confirmed in the mind of Abram; God took a human way to give a confirmation of the covenant to Abram. I do not doubt that it prefigures the great truth of how God in a certain sense came into that place in order to confirm the covenant. In the death of Christ you get the veil of the temple rent in twain, from the top to the bottom; God was there, God came into it in His testimony. What the death of Christ meant to anybody that had eyes to see was redemption; but it meant another thing, too, that God intended to carry out all the purposes of His will. Christ came to do God’s will, and He went down into death, and, if I may venture to use the expression, God was there in divine presence; but the testimony on the part of God was that He would accomplish all the blessed purposes of His will. That is presented to us in the death of Christ. There is a passage in the Hebrews which will substantiate this, Jesus “was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death”. What for? “That he might taste death for everything”. It was in the death of Christ that God gave the confirmation of the covenant, and the death of Christ was the pledge and witness on the part of God that every purpose of His will would be made good. And then you get the promise in regard of the seed; because Abram was not to enjoy the inheritance personally (he may enjoy it in a fuller way in the time to come), but he was to go to the grave in a good old age in peace, and the enjoyment of the inheritance was to be in his seed. It has been pointed out that the seed of Abram never, or scarcely ever, really enjoyed the extent of the inheritance which is spoken of here, from the great river, the river Euphrates, to the sea.
The whole point of the chapter, to my mind, is [p. 259] in the great principles of death and resurrection. God is the God of resurrection. That we know; but it is a wonderful thing that the soul of the saint can be linked with the God of resurrection. And when once the soul is linked with him in that scene where Christ is, we are prepared to learn another lesson, that God has to take everything out of death; and, as Christians, we have to accept death. It is only by death that I can reach resurrection experimentally. How can I understand what it is to be risen with Christ if I do not first know what it is to have died with Christ? We have to accept death, to drink the bitter waters of Marah — it is man’s portion, what belongs to him — and then it is that we learn really in spiritual power, not simply what it is to be identified with Christ in death, but what it is to be risen with Him. But here we get the great truth that Abram had to taste death in type and figure, in the horror of great darkness; Israel had to go down into death; and even God Himself, in His testimony, came down into death, giving witness in the death of Christ that He would bring to pass all the blessed purposes of His will.
Now, that stands good, not simply for the moment and for Abram, but in the book of Genesis you get the great principles of God’s ways; you do not get redemption there exactly, but the state of man and the purpose of God. The state of man is brought out, his innocent state in the first instance, and his sinful state afterwards, and then, in the men of promise, the state of faith. At the same time, the purposes of God’s will are largely unfolded, and the great truth comes out that God makes Himself known. He puts Abram in contact with Himself as the God of resurrection, as we know Him. It is a great thing for our souls to be in the resurrection sphere. I feel so few Christians are really there as to the state of their souls. They have a great [p. 260] deal more to do with the God of providence than with the God of resurrection. They look to God to care for them down here, which He certainly does, and to prove His mercy; but the great thing is to be in spirit outside this world altogether, in the sphere in which God is free, and in which He operates. There it is that you find liberty with God, and you get the sense of His power, and entrance into all the blessed counsels of His will. God invited Abram there, and linked him with Himself, and when once that is accomplished things come in perfect order.
May God give to us grace to anticipate the day of the Lord. We are not children of the night, but children of the day, and in the light of the Lord; and the great point for us is to rejoice in the Lord, having the consciousness in our souls that we are not of the night nor of darkness, but we are of the light and of the day. The day-star has risen in our hearts, we are in the light of the God of resurrection, and in His presence in peace and righteousness, being justified. And we have put off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.