Faith: November 2006
Table of Contents
The Pull
A boy was flying his kite one day
Up out of sight, away, away;
It had soared till not a speck was seen,
Yet he stood there holding the string, serene;
“How do you know you have a kite?”
Asked a passerby as he saw the sight
Of the boy standing there gazing aloft,
His hair all ruffled by breezes soft.
“You had a kite, and you have a string,
But where is the kite? You see not a thing!
Maybe it’s gone, blown far from here;
How do you know it’s still up there?”
“I know it’s there!” laughed the boy aloud,
His keen eyes fixed on a lacy cloud;
“I don’t have to see it; the wind is full
And my kite’s up there — I feel the pull!”
And so it is in the Christian’s life:
We’ve an anchor to windward against stress and
strife;
There may be winds, and clouds may race;
We need not doubt Him, we keep our place,
Serene and steady, we’re not alone;
Up there is Jesus — He’s on the throne;
We know He’s there. Our hearts are full
Of confidence — we feel His pull!
Unseen He is by human eye,
And the scoffing skeptic is prone to cry:
“What do you hope for? It’s all a dream —
A nebulous myth — no Christ you’ve seen!”
But we can serenely go on the while;
We don’t have to see Him; we sense His smile!
And we’ll see Him soon, for faith is full
Of peace and assurance; we feel His pull!
Mary Burns Warmenhoven
Faith and God
We must remember that faith begins with God, and he who is walking really in a path of faith always brings God in, and this is the difference between it and unbelief; unbelief always leaves Him out. Again, faith is the individual soul alone with God, and any intervention of a third party destroys it. Any acting from secondary motives is not faith. It must be God and His Word alone before the soul for the act to be an act of faith.
Faith grows. This can be learned in the history of the children of God and as detailed in Hebrews 11. To bring God into everything is the privilege of His children. There is nothing too small in our daily path for Him to notice who has numbered even the hairs of our head. It is this bringing God into all our matters that produces the walk, the life of faith, and which is the subject of the chapter I have referred to.
And it is just this bringing God into our matters that reveals to us the true character of them, for “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” Thus this, by becoming the continual habit of the soul, becomes at once a preserving power for it in the midst of all the darkness and unbelief of our natural hearts.
The principle for the Christian now is found in the words, “He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.” We must see God in everything.
In the examples of Hebrews 11, we see they reckoned on God. This is faith and this characterizes each one. In Abel’s act, God’s claim is admitted, and in the sacrifice, Abel confesses that he merited death as the sinner. He comes in the provided way and is accepted, “God testifying of his gifts.” So God is before Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and the others. This settled everything for each in his day.
It is important just simply to grasp what real faith is, that it begins with God, and continues to have to do with God, and that it is intensely individual. We are glad and thankful to find others in the path of faith with us, but this having always to do with God now individually is the power to sustain us still going on in the path if others fail us, and it still produces the works seen in a life of faith. When a trial comes, if there has not been this individual communion with God, it is often found that we have been merely imitators of others. We then, like Ephraim, “being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle” (Psa. 78:9). But if we have been in the habit of bringing God in, we shall turn to Him in the day of battle, and turning to Him is not turning our back to the enemy.
“This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).
H. C. Anstey
Faith
The word “faith” means to receive the testimony of another as true. John 3:33 gives the scriptural definition: “He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.” Faith is not only receiving the testimony (what is said) as true, but, importantly, it involves receiving the one who gives the testimony. In other words, our faith in what a person says depends upon our faith in the person. We need not only to have confidence in what God says, but confidence in God himself — “God is true.”
As one would expect, this issue has much to do with Abraham’s faith, for “he believed ... 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” (Rom. 4:16-18).
When man first gave up his unquestioning trust in God Himself, he gave up his confidence in what God said. Soon he disobeyed God; he was “lost” and in need of salvation. God in grace did all that was needed to restore man’s faith in Himself, for if a man dies in unbelief, he is lost forever.
May we who have been saved by faith continue to learn to “live by faith.” May we live by the simple motto: “I believe God.”
Living by Faith
“The just shall live by his faith.” This weighty statement occurs in Habakkuk 2:4, and it is quoted in three epistles, namely, Romans, Galatians and Hebrews, with a distinct application in each.
In Romans it is applied to the great question of righteousness. The Apostle declares himself not ashamed of the gospel, “for it is God’s power to salvation, to every one that believes, both to Jew first and to Greek: for righteousness of God is revealed therein, on the principle of faith, to faith: according as it is written, But the just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:16-17 JND).
Then in Galatians, where the Apostle is seeking to recall those erring assemblies to the foundations of Christianity, he says, “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith” (Gal. 3:11).
Finally, in Hebrews, where the object is to exhort believers to hold fast their confidence, we read, “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith” (Heb. 10:35-37). Here we have faith presented not only as the ground of righteousness, but as the vital principle by which we are to live, day by day, from the starting-post to the goal of the Christian course. There is no other way of righteousness, no other way of living, but by faith. It is by faith we are justified, and by faith we live. By faith we stand, and by faith we walk.
For All Christians
Now this is true of all Christians, and all should seek to enter into it fully. Every child of God is called to live by faith. It is a very grave mistake indeed to single out certain individuals who happen to have no visible source of temporal supplies and speak of them as though they alone lived by faith. According to this view of the question, ninety-nine out of every hundred Christians would be deprived of the precious privilege of living by faith. If a man has a settled income, if he has a certain salary, if he has what is termed a secular calling by which he earns bread for himself and his family, is he not privileged to live by faith? Do none live by faith save those who have no visible means of support? Is the life of faith to be confined to the matter of trusting God for food and clothing?
What a lowering of the life of faith it is to confine it to the question of temporal supplies! No doubt it is a very blessed and a very real thing to trust God for everything, but the life of faith has a far higher and wider range than mere bodily wants. It embraces all that in any way concerns us, in body, soul and spirit. To live by faith is to walk with God — to cling to Him, to lean on Him, to draw from His exhaustless springs. It is to find our resources in Him — to know Him as our only resource in all difficulties and in all our trials. It is to be absolutely, completely and continually shut up to Him, to be undividedly dependent upon Him, apart from and above every creature confidence, every human hope and every earthly expectation.
Such is the life of faith. Let us see that we understand it. It must be a reality, or nothing at all. It will not do simply to talk about the life of faith. We must live it, and in order to live it, we must know God practically — know Him intimately, in the deep secret of our own souls. It is utterly vain and delusive to profess to be living by faith and looking to the Lord, while in reality our hearts are looking to some creature resource.
Human Props
How often do people speak and write about their dependence upon God to meet certain wants, and by the very fact of their making them known to a fellow-mortal they are, in principle, departing from the life of faith! If I write to a friend or publish to the local assembly the fact that I am looking to the Lord to meet a certain need, I am virtually off the ground of faith in that matter. The language of faith is this: “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him” (Psa. 62:5). To make known my wants, directly or indirectly, to a human being, is departure from the life of faith and a positive dishonor to God. It is actually betraying Him. It is tantamount to saying that God has failed me, and I must look to my fellow for help. It is placing the creature between my soul and God, thus robbing my soul of rich blessing, and God of the glory due to Him.
This is serious work, and it demands our most solemn attention. God deals in realities. He can never fail a trusting heart. But then, He must be trusted. It is of no use to talk about trusting Him when our hearts are really looking to other avenues of help. “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith?” (James 2:14). Empty profession is but a delusion to the soul and a dishonor to God. The true life of faith is a grand reality. God delights in it, and He is glorified by it. There is nothing in this world that so gratifies and glorifies God as the life of faith.
Do we know what it is to have the living God filling the whole range of our soul’s vision? Is He enough for us? Can we trust Him for everything —for time and eternity? Or are we in the habit of making known our wants to man in any way? Is it the habit of our heart to turn to the creature for sympathy, help or counsel? These are searching questions, but let us not turn away from them. Be assured that it is morally healthful for our souls to be tested faithfully, as in the very presence of God. Our hearts are so treacherous that when we imagine we are leaning upon God, we may really be leaning upon some human prop. Thus God is shut out, and we are left in barrenness and desolation.
Gratefulness for Human Agents
And yet God does use the creature to help and bless us, for He does so constantly. The man of faith will be deeply conscious of this fact and truly grateful to every human agent that God uses to help him. God comforted Paul by the coming of Titus, but had Paul been looking to Titus, he would have had but little comfort. God used the poor widow to feed Elijah, but Elijah’s dependence was not upon the widow but upon God. Thus it is in every case. Let us have our complete trust in God, and then our hearts will go on in peace. Then we will gladly accept what God gives us through others, but God will continually be between us and the creature, instead of the creature subtly getting between ourselves and God.
C. H. Mackintosh, adapted
from Living by Faith
Faith and the Will
Faith may lead into difficulty, but I have the consolation of saying, God is there, and victory is certain. Otherwise, in my apprehension, there is something stronger than God. This demands a perfect, practical submission of the will. God may allow evil to have its course and test us in order that we may understand that the aim of faith is not here at all, and see that in the most difficult circumstances God can intervene, as in the sacrifice of Abraham and the raising of Lazarus. To tarry in circumstances is unbelief; Satan is behind the circumstances to attack us, but behind all that, God is there to break our wills.
Faith and Its Footsteps: Hebrews 11
All through man’s history, no matter who had obtained a “good report,” it was by faith. Men will count us fools. We may give as a definition of folly: a man’s acting most consistently for an object that nobody sees and nobody believes to be true. The saint’s warrant is the Word of God. The moment he acts upon any object seen, he ceases to act as a Christian. Christ lived, in that sense, the life of faith. It is the life of faith we get here, not salvation, or the finding peace in the way of faith. Here faith is looked at as the power by which they walked.
There are these two things in faith: as it regards, first, peace of soul, and, second, power for walk. If I talk of faith, I may mean belief of a testimony — a person tells me a thing, and I believe him. But there is another sense in which I may have faith in that man; that is, I may put my trust in him. We often confound these things. There is the testimony of God, which I have to believe, and a trusting in God, which is the power of my walk. That which gives me peace is receiving the testimony of God. I need confidence in God for power of walk, but I must not confound this confidence in God with His testimony.
Abraham’s Faith
We shall find the two things in Abraham. God called Abraham and showed him the stars of heaven and said, “So shall thy seed be,” and Abraham “believed God.” In the offering up of Isaac (Gen. 22:9) there was not the receiving of a testimony, but “believing in God.”
Abraham was strengthened by the practical, active manifestation of the power of faith. He trusted, so to speak, blindly in God. God called him by His grace, and he went out, not knowing whither he went. There comes in confidence in God; not simply the receiving a testimony, but blind, implicit confidence in God. A person might say, If I only knew what would be the consequences of my doing so, I could trust God. Then you will never go. Look at Adam. How did Adam act? He had present external things, but he took the devil’s word in faith. God turns around and says, You have believed the devil, when you had all My good things; now you must trust Me. You go out not knowing whither you go, because of trusting in the person that is leading you. God will give light enough to say, God wills this, and I do not see another step. When you have turned the corner, you will see what is around the corner.
Further, when we have taken a step, we shall find that the Lord never satisfies us: He blesses, but He does not satisfy. When Abraham comes into the place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, what has he got? Nothing. He is still a stranger. This the heart dislikes. Hence the disappointments often experienced. As regards our prospects, we have our own thoughts about them; we are thinking perhaps of what we are going to make them be twenty years hence. God is going to bring us into His rest.
He brings Abraham into the land, and then He begins to lead his thoughts to another country. He gets near God and is placed upon a high enough platform of faith to see it is all before him yet. The Lord reveals Himself to him in communion, speaks with him, unfolds to him His purposes, and Abraham worships. He has his tent and his altar.
The Christian’s Rest
And this is what God does with us; He makes Christians of us, brings us into the land of promise, and makes us see it is all before us yet. This is not the time for rest. The eye becomes clear in the ways of God, and we have the privilege of being strangers and sojourners with God, and we shall be strangers and sojourners until we get home in the home of God.
Beloved friends, how is it with you as regards this? Can you really say, My home is in God’s home (the home of your hearts, that is); I have no home till then, and I do not want one. There is not anything between us and God, no sin between us and God, for Christ has put it all away. Are your souls then resting on the Lord Jesus Christ? or are you working to settle something that has been settled already? The Lord give us to believe His testimony and to trust in His power.
In Spite of Impossibility
It is characteristic of faith to reckon on God, not simply spite of difficulty, but spite of impossibility. Faith concerns not itself about means; it counts upon the promise of God. To the natural man the believer may seem to lack prudence, nevertheless, from the moment it becomes a question of means which render the thing easy to man, it is no longer God acting; it is no longer His work where means are looked to. When with man there is impossibility, God must come in, and it is so much the more evidenced to be the right way, since God only does that which He wills. Faith has reference to His will, and to that only, thus it consults not either about means or circumstances, in other words, it consults not with flesh and blood. Where faith is weak, external means are beforehand reckoned on in the work of God. Let us remember that when things are feasible to man, there is no longer need of faith, because there is no longer need of the energy of the Spirit. This is why Christians do much and effect little.
J. N. Darby, adapted from
Collected Writings, Vol. 12:393-403
The Author and Finisher of Faith
All the witnesses for God spoken of in He-brews 11 are for our encouragement in the path of faith, but there is a difference between them and Jesus. Accordingly, the Apostle here singles Him out of all. If I see Abraham, who by faith sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, or Isaac who blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come, or Jacob on his dying bed of blessing and worship, they have all run their race before. In Jesus we have a far higher witness, and in Him there is also the grace to sustain us in the race.
A Motive and Source of Strength
In looking unto Jesus we get a motive and an unfailing source of strength. We see in Jesus the love which led Him to take this place for us, who “when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them.” If a race is to be run, we need a forerunner. In Jesus we have got one who did run before us and has become the Captain and Completer of faith. In looking to Jesus we draw strength into our souls. While Abraham and the rest filled up their several places in their little measure, Christ has filled up the whole course of faith. There is no position that I can be in, no trial whatever that I can endure, but that Christ has passed through it all and overcome. Thus I have got one who presents Himself in that character which I need, and I find in Him one who knows what grace is needed and will supply it. He has overcome and says to me, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He did not say, “You shall overcome,” but “I have overcome.” It was so in the case of the blind man (John 9:34-41) who was cast out of the synagogue. Why was he cast out? Because Jesus had been cast out before him. Now we learn that, however rough the storm may be, it only throws us the more thoroughly on Christ, and thus that which would have been a sore trial only drives us closer to Him.
Whatever turns our eye away from Christ is but a hindrance to our running the race that is set before us. If Christ has become the object of the soul, let us lay aside every weight. If I am running a race, a coat, however comfortable, would only hinder and must be gotten rid of; it is a weight and would prevent my running. I do not want anything to entangle my feet. If I am looking to Jesus in the appointed race, I must throw the coat aside; otherwise, it would seem strange to throw away so useful a garment. But there is a positive side as well as a negative in all this. If there is something to be laid aside, there is someone to whom to look. While there is much encouragement in the history of the faithful witnesses in Hebrews 11, our eye must be fixed on Jesus, the true and faithful One. There is not a trial or difficulty that He has not passed through before me and found His resources in God the Father. He will supply the needed grace to my heart.
Dependence and Undivided Affection
There were these two features in the life of Christ down here. First, He exercised constant dependence on His Father, as He said, “I live by the Father.” The new man is ever a dependent man. The moment we get out of dependence, we get into the flesh. It is not through our own life (for, indeed, we have but death) that we really live, but by Christ, through feeding on Him. In the highest possible sense, He walked in dependence on the Father, and for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame. Second, His affections were undivided. You never find Christ having any new object revealed to Him so as to induce Him to go on in His path of faithfulness. Paul and Stephen, on the other hand, had the glory revealed to them, which enabled them to endure. When the heaven was opened to Stephen, the Lord appeared in glory to him, as afterwards to Saul of Tarsus. But when the heavens opened on Jesus, there was no object presented to Him, but, on the contrary, He was the object of heaven; the Holy Spirit descends upon Him, and the voice of the Father declares, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Thus the divine person of the Lord is always being witnessed to. The Apostle here gets hold of the preciousness of Christ in the lowliness into which He has come, but he never loses sight of the glory of Him who has come there.
J. N. Darby, adapted from
Collected Writings, Vol. 16:277-278
Believing a Lie
Since the beginning of man’s history, Satan has tried to discredit God. In seeking to evade his responsibility toward God, man has been his willing student. Eve chose to believe Satan instead of what God had said, and subsequently her eldest son Cain “went out from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16). He then tried to surround himself with all that could make him comfortable and happy while leaving God out. The world system of today is simply the extension of the world that Cain set up, and it is essentially the same in its moral character.
Eternity and the Heart
However, man was made for eternity, not merely for time. Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that “He hath set the world in their heart,” and the expression “the world” in this verse can also be translated “the infinite” or “the eternal.” Because he is made in God’s image with a never-dying soul, man’s heart cannot be satisfied with all that is in this world. More than this, man is a moral being and he cannot escape this fact, despite his desperate efforts to do so. His conscience tells him that there is a God to whom he is responsible. If he gives up the knowledge of the true God, he is left with a vacuum.
Over the centuries man has endeavored to fill that void. The result is that he has invented false religions, no doubt under Satan’s tutorship. Satan thus became man’s master, using his vile lusts and passions to rule him. False religions made gods that were the product of man’s own imagination and conformed to human, not divine, standards. These false systems also gave man license to practice his sinful lusts under the guise of religion, thus salving his conscience when he was doing that which a pure conscience would tell him was a sin against God. In Romans we read, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful . . . and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man. . . . For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections” (Rom. 1:21,23,26). We also read, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Rom. 1:28). The history of false religions for thousands of years exemplifies these statements.
The Religion of Modern Man
Where does all this leave us in the twenty-first century? Modern man scoffs at the idea of worshiping a literal idol and makes fun of spiritism, voodoo or anything concerning the spirit world. In seeking to deny anything that is beyond his own reason and understanding, he denies Satan’s existence, preferring not to believe in anything that cannot be “scientifically” proven. However, he must have faith in something, and Satan has arranged to fill this vacuum too. The religion of modern man is secular humanism. This religion rejects a supernatural God and holds to one’s own individual dignity, worth and capacity for self-realization through reason. Sad to say, it is most prevalent in areas that once enjoyed a strong Christian testimony and a firm grounding in the Bible. Secular humanism is not really so different from false religions that worship literal idols, for ultimately every false system focuses man back on himself, and makes man, not God, the center of his thoughts.
The results of this type of thinking have permeated the thought processes of the modern world. Although many would admit the existence of God, most would think in terms of a god that was small enough for man to encompass. A medical colleague of mine said to me some years ago, “I believe in a god, but I doubt that he concerns himself with whether or not I cheat on my income tax.” The humanistic liberal of the modern world has formed a religion for himself, whether or not he is willing to admit it. He would perhaps deny that it is a religion, but it has all the tenets of religion and is Satan’s answer to the void that God alone can fill.
This thinking spawns serious problems. In seeking to deny morality and ultimately deny God, man must deny what he is in his essential being. Some years ago a man named J. Budziszewski was hired as a professor by the University of Texas to develop a system of government that did not require morality. In the process he almost committed suicide and finally gave up, because it cannot be done. As a result of the experience he wrote a book entitled What We Can’t Not Know. He was forced to realize that man is a moral being and as such cannot operate in a moral world apart from some standard of morality. But modern man is trying to do just that. Where will it end?
A Disguised Religion
The secular humanism of the modern world has all the trappings of religion, although it is practically godless. In seeking to be non-religious, man has arranged a system of beliefs that, in the words of another, “has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe.” More than this, the system that embraces this line of things is seeking to force it upon others with as much vigor as the well-known religions of this world. References to God have been taken out of schools and other spheres of public life, while children are often subjected to vulgar courses on sex education that are required in some public schools. When teaching children about the origin of the universe, God cannot be mentioned, but the theory of evolution is propagated as if it were a fact. We are bombarded with this amoral thinking in much of the news media, and any attempt to speak against it is considered an attack on liberty. Last year in Canada, when same-sex marriage was in the process of being legalized, Dr. John Patrick, a respected medical doctor and university professor, was invited to speak to the Senate for an hour on the subject. Because his views did not coincide with the thinking of those in the Senate, he was repeatedly interrupted, forced to shorten his speech, and eventually called to an immediate halt. Some senators were so enraged that they could hardly speak.
Where It Will End
The Word tells the believer where all this will end. This movement, which is gaining more and more momentum, is conditioning many people to believe lies. It has been shown repeatedly that the proponents of the theory of evolution have no compunction about lying to further their ideas. The liberal press distorts news to create the desired false impressions, and when reports are given of Christians and Christianity lies are not uncommon. Anything supportive of God or His claims upon man is often badly twisted to give the wrong slant on it. On a more individual level, lying has become commonplace in our society, and is now condoned by many. Satan is the author of all this, for “he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). However, God “that cannot lie” (Titus 1:2) will have the last word in it all.
Strong Delusion
After the Lord comes, no doubt the greatest lies ever heard in this world will be circulated, and men who have rejected the gospel will believe them. We read in 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12: “For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Those who will believe this awful delusion will primarily be those who have lived under and heard the Word of God but have rejected it. It will be “because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10). Man’s inner need for faith in something outside himself will culminate in his believing what God calls “strong delusion.”
May we who know the Lord carefully avoid having any part in this thinking. While living and moving in a world that is increasingly characterized by humanism and a focus on sinful man, it is easy for our own moral values to become distorted. Our only resource is the Word of God, which gives us the truth and wisdom for every situation we may meet. On the other hand, may our hearts go out to those who, caught in the web of Satan’s making, are going on to their terrible doom. May we use every opportunity to bring Christ before them and to point them to the only One who is worthy of our faith.
W. J. Prost
Faith and Flesh
Genesis 3, 4 and 5 are very important chapters. They show us the production of the two great energies which, to this day, animate the whole moral scene around us. These two energies are the energy of flesh and the energy of faith, that is, of the old nature and of the renewed mind.
The Energy of the Flesh
The lie of the serpent prevails to produce the first of these. The serpent gains the attention of the woman with words in which there was some suggestion injurious to her Lord and Creator. It was a lie, though subtly conveyed — the only instrument by which he could reach and tempt her. She listens and answers, and her faculties, thus enlisted, are soon in action in the cause of her seducer. The principle which is called the “flesh” is produced and begins to work at once.
The Case of Cain
But the working of this same principle (thus produced in Adam through the lie of the Serpent) is manifested in other ways afterwards in Cain. “Cain . . . was of that wicked one.” He becomes a tiller of the ground. But he tills, not as subject to the penalty, but as one that would get something desirable out of the ground, though the Lord had cursed it. He would get something for himself, independent of God.
Nothing is more godly, more according to the divine mind, concerning us, than to eat our bread by the sweat of our face, to get food and raiment by hard and honest toil. It is a beautiful accepting of the punishment of our sin and a bowing to the righteous thoughts of God. But to get out of the materials of the cursed ground what is to minister to our delight, our honor and our wealth, in forgetfulness of sin and of the judgment of God, is but perpetuating our apostasy and rebellion.
There is the enmity of the seed of the serpent against the Seed of the woman. “Cain was of that wicked one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” This was the cause. It was the enmity of sin to godliness, the enmity of the carnal mind against God, the lusting of the old man, the lusting of flesh against Spirit; it was the hatred of the world to Christ, because he testified of it, that “the works thereof are evil.” “The carnal mind is enmity against God.”
Such is the flesh, the old nature, in the history of its production and in the course and character of its workings. It is exactly now what it was then. It rules “the course of this world” under Satan, but it is found also in each of us, if provision be made for it. But we are to know it — to know it whence it came and how it works and to mortify it in its principle and in its acts, in all its proper native energies which so continually beset the soul.
The Activity of Faith
But we now turn to the other activities which we find produced and at work in these wonderful chapters — the activity or energy of faith produced by the Word of God through the hidden but effectual power of the Spirit.
While Adam was in the condition to which sin had reduced him, while he was still the guilty and culprit man under the trees of the garden, the word of the gospel — the tidings of the Conqueror slain, who bore the penalty, the woman’s Seed — reached his ear, and he is born again of the incorruptible seed, the word of the truth of the gospel.
He comes forth just as he was. But he comes forth in the sense of salvation and of the victory, which the grace of God had wrought for him. Accordingly he speaks of life. He calls his wife “the mother of all living.” There is something truly marvelous as well as excellent in that. Dead, as he himself was, in trespasses and sins, he talks of life, but he talks of it in connection with Christ and with Him only. He gives himself no living memorial at all. He does not link himself with the thought or mention of life, but only the Seed of the woman, according to the word which he had just heard. Nay, he rather implies that he knew full well he had lost all title and power of life, and that it was entirely in another, that it was in the promised seed for him. That the life found in another was for his use, he had no manner of doubt, the proof of which is this — he comes forth from the place of shame and guilt into the place of liberty and confidence and the presence of God.
Faith Regains God
He regains God. He had lost Him and been estranged from Him. He had lost Him as his Creator, but he had now regained Him as his Saviour, in the woman’s Seed, in Christ his righteousness. This simplicity and boldness of faith is exactly after the mind of God. Nothing could have been so gratifying to Him as this, and, consequently, in pledge of this, He first makes a coat of skins for Adam, and then with His own hands He covers his naked body.
Christ is now everything to this pardoned sinner. In like manner, through faith, Eve exults in the promise. It is the joy and expectation of her heart, and Abel’s religion is entirely formed by it. The penalties of sweat of face and sorrow of heart seem to be forgotten. And what is deeply to be considered is that the earth is lightly held when Jesus was firmly grasped. Adam has regained the Lord Himself, and he seems never to count on being a citizen of the world again, but a mere tiller of the ground according to divine appointment for a season and then to leave it to share the full fruit of the grace and redemption he had now trusted, in other worlds.
The energy of the flesh or of the old nature is produced and begins its work. The energy of faith is also brought forth in the souls of the elect and displays its power very blessedly. We learn our own lessons here. We carry the two energies in us. By nature and through grace our souls have got connection with Christ, like Adam or Abel or Seth. And we wait for the translation of Enoch (Gen. 5:24).
J. G. Bellett, adapted from Musings on Scripture
Faith — What Is It?
In this day of doubt, the question is of paramount importance to us all: What is faith? Much depends, both for the present and for the future, upon the answer we are able to give to this question. Perhaps the simplest answer is given to us in the words of Paul, uttered during the violent storm which occurred on his voyage to Rome. The circumstances were most distressing. For several days the vessel in which he sailed had been tossed up and down in the Mediterranean Sea, with every prospect of total loss. When his fellow-travelers were at the point of despair, he told them of the simple message that had been conveyed to him by an angel of God, that not a life should be lost of all the 276 on board the ship. He added, “Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me” (Acts 27:25).
“I Believe God”
Here we have the whole secret of faith — “I believe God.” The first man and woman in this world lost confidence in their Creator when in the garden, preferring rather to receive the word of the serpent. Ever since it has been common with man to distrust and disbelieve his God. Faith is the return of the soul to man’s original confidence in his Maker.
May the voice of God be heard today by those who desire to hear it? Most assuredly! Is it conceivable that the God of unfathomable love and goodness would leave the vast human family without some light to illuminate its darkness? The thought is unnatural and impossible. Where, then, may the divine voice be heard? In the Scriptures, which are God-breathed, as Paul assured Timothy long ago. Let us then cherish confidence in the sacred writings, accepting them as the very Word of God. If these be surrendered, all is gone.
Tactics of the Enemy
Our arch-enemy Satan well knows where the key of the situation lies, and hence his persistent efforts throughout all ages to wrest the Scriptures from human hands. His tactics change with changing times, at one season rousing secular authorities to an epidemic of Bible burning, at another season filling the religious atmosphere with unholy criticism. But whatever the tactics, the aim is always the same — to destroy both faith and that on which faith rests.
“Sirs ... I believe God.” In the Bible God tells me of my sins, humbling me into the dust. Faithfully He warns me, in writings that will never deceive, what must be the consequences of sin. More, and better than all, He unfolds to me a heart of infinite affection, which did not hold back even from the sacrifice of His own well-beloved Son, that sinful men might, on a perfectly righteous basis, be saved and blessed forevermore. Surely such a God is worthy of all my heart’s confidence and love.
W. W. Fereday