08.03.06. Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Faith—Its warrant—The Divine testimony—Necessity of an acquaintance with the Divine character, or name, as exhibited in the person and work of Chrit THE warrant, or ground, of faith is to be considered in connection with the views already given, respecting (I.) the office or function it has to discharge, as well as (II.) the nature of the act or exercise itself.
III. Generally, it is to be observed, that the warrant or ground of faith is the divine testimony. I believe because the Lord hath said it. The formal reason for believing, is not the reasonableness of what the Lord saith, but the fact that the Lord saith it. To give credit to a report on account of its inherent probability, or the circumstantial evidence by which it is corroborated, is a different thing from receiving it on the simple assurance of a competent and trustworthy witness. The states of mind implied in these two acts of faith respectively, are very different; the one being that of a judge or critic—the other, that of a disciple or a little child.
It is true, indeed, on the one hand, that as an element, and a very important one, in determining the question, whether it be the Lord that speaketh or not, we are entitled to take into account the substance and manner of the communication made to us; to weigh well its bearing on what we otherwise know of God and of ourselves, and to gather from its high tone of sovereignty, so worthy of the speaker, and its deep breathings of mercy, so suited to the parties appealed to, many precious and delightful confirmations of the fact, that it is a message from heaven that has reached us, and a message addressed to us, and meant for us, poor sinners upon earth. It is true, also, on the other hand, that, in gracious condescension, God does not merely announce to us peremptorily His will and our duty—abruptly intimating that so it is, and so it must be; but He is at pains to explain how it is so, and how it must be so; He lets us into the rationale of his own procedure; He shows us what he is doing, and why, and how he is doing it; He not merely proclaims the general result, that his justice is satisfied on behalf of all that choose, or become willing, to embrace the righteousness of his Son; but He goes into the details of the mysterious transaction, and makes it plain and palpable that this satisfaction is real, and cannot but be sufficient; He not merely summons, authoritatively, the rebels against his government to submit and be reconciled; but He argues, and expostulates, and pleads with them—unfolding the whole plan and purpose of wise and holy benevolence, whereby he is enabled to receive them graciously and love them freely; and all this he does that they may have no excuse for their unbelief, and no pretence for not being intelligently and thoroughly satisfied.
Still it is ultimately, or rather immediately, on the ipse dixit of God—his THUS SAITH THE LORD—that our faith must rest; for then only am I really exercising this blessed grace, when I am not merely canvassing the contents of the revelation, with a view to settle my mind as to whence it comes, nor even meditating on the wondrous wisdom with which all is arranged, so as to harmonize all the attributes of God, and meet all the exigencies of man’s case; but when, like the child Samuel, I say from the heart: “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth;” or, like the docile and grateful virgin mother, reposing her trust, not on the explanation given of the marvellous announcement made to her, but on the truth of Him from whom it came: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to THY WORD.”
It is plain, however, that as regards the nature of the faith which I exercise, and still more its fitness for the function or office assigned to it, much will depend, not merely on the precise literal amount of what is said, but also on the view which I take of Him, whose word or testimony is my warrant for believing. Thus, to make his testimony a foundation of that faith which is needed, the veracity, the faithfulness, the sincerity and truth of God, must be owned and appreciated; otherwise there can be no credit given to him, and no confidence reposed in him, at all. But it would seem that other attributes of his character must be apprehended, in order that his testimony may be a ground of the faith which is desiderated and sought. For example, in addition to his veracity, the unchangeableness of God must be recognised. How indispensable this is, will appear, if we inquire what is the common source of the scepticism, whether of presumption or of doubt, which lies and lurks at the bottom of the unbelieving heart. It is not so much the veracity, or general truthfulness of God, that is called in question, as his unchangeableness, or the immutability of his counsels and his commands. Men forget that it is not only said of him, “He is not a man, that he should lie;” but it is added, “nor the son of man, that he should repent.” Hence, in reference to threatened judgment, that reliance which they are so prone to place on the imagined placability of God, and the ready heed they give to the argument of the tempter: “Ye shall not surely die.” Thus, in a similar case—alas! too much of ordinary experience in human families—when I warn my child of my determination to visit his iniquities with stripes, and his transgressions with the rod, why does he run away from me, careless and unconcerned? Not so much because he doubts my honesty, as because he doubts my inflexibility of purpose. He is quite aware that I am in earnest in straitly forbidding the offence, and loudly intimating my resolution to punish it; but he sees a relenting fondness in the glance of the very eye that would sternly frown on him; and experience has taught him that I may change my mind; and he has a vague notion that if the worst, as the saying is, come to the worst, my parental tenderness will get the better of me, or something will happen to appease me, and somehow he will get off. In the same way, when I tell him of the general principles according to which his conduct in youth must exert an influence on his welfare in after years, and early profligacy must entail upon him either early death or an old age of vain remorse and premature decay, he admits my veracity, as well as the average probability of the testimony which I bear; but he lays hold of the doubt that may be cast on the inflexibility of the law, or the invariableness of the providence, which I seek to announce to him; and he can find many plausible reasons for a relaxation of the rule or practice in his especial favour. Thus he carries his scepticism and calculation of chances, from the parental government to the divine. So also, in my dealings of kindness with him, how is it that, when I fondle and caress my child most warmly, I may detect, under all his wild gaiety, a shrinking and half-avowed sense of insecurity? It is not that he doubts my sincerity at the time; but, alas! like the school-boys in the deserted village, the “boding trembler” having found that I may be swayed by passion, or warped by prejudice, has “learned to trace, the day’s disasters in my morning face.” The threatenings and promises of God are too generally received in a precisely similar spirit and temper by the children of men. (Psalms 50:21; Matthew 25:24) And, in fact, the unbelief of the evil heart manifests itself in this very disposition to regard the denunciations of God’s law as mere ebullitions of personal, and therefore placable, resentment; and the assurances of his gospel as the relentings of a merely pitiful, and therefore precarious, indulgence. On both sides, in reference both to the severity and to the goodness of God, what is chiefly needed is, to have men convinced, not only that God is really in earnest, but that he is unchangeably so. But this is not all. There must be not merely a conviction of the unchangeableness of God, but a conviction also, that this unchangeableness is necessary, reasonable, and right; that it is not to be confounded with the perseverance of mere obstinacy or caprice; but is the result of the absolute perfection and infinite excellence of the divine character and nature. Among men, one often holds on in the course which he has indicated and announced—whether of favouritism or of vindictiveness—merely because he has committed himself, and has not courage, or is ashamed, to draw back. Such a one is essentially of a weak temper and frame of mind, and never can be the object either of respect or of faith. He may be feared or flattered as a tyrant, but can never be loved as a gracious father, or reverenced as a just master and lord. The unchangeableness of Jehovah, on the other hand, must be viewed in connection with the glorious attributes of his character, and the everlasting principles of his administration, as the moral governor of the universe; and thus viewed, his unchangeableness must so commend itself to the intelligence, the conscience, and the whole moral nature of the individual to whom it is rightly manifested, as to make him feel, not only that God is, and must be, unchangeable—but that, for his part, even if it were possible, he would not wish Him to be otherwise.
It is here, particularly, that we may see the necessity of an acquaintance with God’s character, as preliminary, if not in the order of time, at least in the order of causation, to that saving faith which rests upon his word or testimony; according to such scriptural statements as these: “They that know thy name shall put their trust in thee.” “Acquaint thyself with God, and be at peace.” Apart from this knowledge of his name or nature, and this acquaintance with his character, the most explicit assurances, either of judgment on the one hand, or of mercy on the other, must fail to bring home real conviction or contentment to my soul. Even if I were forced to admit the truth of his commands and prohibitions—his threatenings and promises—and were also most unequivocally told of their irrevocable stedfastness, and of the impossibility of any change of his mind with regard to them—still, in ignorance of his real character, and blind to all its glorious excellences and perfections, there would be no acquiescence on my part, but, on the contrary, either impatience, sullen resentment, and defiance, on the one hand, or carelessness and presumption, on the other. Beyond all question, the faith of which we are in search, whatever word of God it is to be based and built on—whether his word of wrath or his word of grace—presupposes an enlightened knowledge of his nature; and such a knowledge, too, as carries consent, and even a measure of complacency, along with it. No true sense of sin, or right apprehension of the holy displeasure and righteous judgment of God, could be wrought in my conscience, by the mere announcement of the sentence of death under which I lie—were it ever so terribly thundered in my ears, and the withering conviction of its irrevocable and endless endurance rivetted, ever so deeply, in my heart. Like the devils, I might believe and tremble; but this extorted belief, forced on me by the mere word of God, unaccompanied with any true and spiritual acquaintance with his name, has nothing in common with the faith which we seek. To realize my condemnation aright, I must not merely apprehend it as a fact; I must enter also into its reasonableness—its righteousness—its inevitable necessity. I must not merely believe that I am condemned; but there must enter into the ground and reason of my belief, such a view of God as makes me feel that I am condemned, not because God has said so, but because GOD IS WHAT HE IS; and makes me feel, moreover, that even if it were to effect my own escape from condemnation, I would not have him to be other than he is. In like manner, in regard to any word of God conveying a promise of mercy, it is not that mere word, taken by itself, that becomes the ground or warrant of my faith, but that word, as the word of Him, who is no longer unknown—whose name and character—whose attributes and perfections, are now recognised, apprehended, or, in short, perceived and seen.
Hence the unspeakable importance of the cross, and the preaching of the cross, as a manifestation of the nature of God, or of what God is; and especially of what God is, in those acts or exercises of his administration in which he is peculiarly the God with whom we have to do—in dealing, that is, with sin—whether to punish or to pardon. Apart from all the verbal assurances connected with it—all the promises and threatenings of God’s word that may be associated with it—the cross, in itself, as an actual transaction and fact in the history of the divine government, exhibits and reveals, not what God says, but WHAT GOD IS; and what, in all his dealings with sin and with sinners, he necessarily must be. And they who are spiritually enlightened to “behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” now see both the severity and the goodness of God in a very different point of view from that in which they once regarded them. Thus, without reference, for the present, to the question of my personal interest in it, or its ultimate bearing on my personal destiny, there the cross stands, as a fact, significantly revealing to me, if my eyes are opened to take it in, the real character of that God with whom I have to do, and the manner in which, being what he is, he must necessarily deal with sinners, and with me, the chief of sinners. For this very end, indeed, is the great fact of the atonement made matter of revelation at all; that the view thus given of the name, or nature, or character of God, may enter as a constituent element, or a determining cause, into the assent which I give to the word of God, in the assurances and promises which that word connects with it; otherwise the transaction might have taken place in another part of the creation, and the knowledge of it might have been confined to another race of beings. In so far as it is an expedient or device in the divine government for getting over, as it were, a difficulty, and meeting an exigency, and enabling God to dispense amnesty and peace—it might have equally well served the ends of justice to have it hid from the eyes of men; and it might have been enough to proclaim to them, without explanation, the mere general message of reconciliation which it warrants God to announce; nay, this might even have seemed a more thorough trial of men’s dispositions, and a simpler appeal to their sense of present danger, and their natural desire of safety. But God sought to be believed, not merely for his word’s, but also for his NAME’S sake; not only on the ground of what he might say, but on the ground of what he is, and must necessarily ever be. No faith based upon his mere word, apart from an intelligent and satisfying acquaintance with his nature, could effect the end in view; for no such faith could insure that falling in with what he is doing—that acquiescence and willing subjection—which is the very thing that he seeks and cares for.
Hence the cross is revealed; and it is revealed as a real transaction. God, in Christ, is seen dealing with sin. And how does he deal with it? He is seen inflicting its full penal and retributive sentence—punishing, in the strictest sense, the individual who, then and there, takes the sin as his own.