THE MERITS OF ABRAHAM.
WHEN, on one occasion, the Lord Jesus disputed with the Jews, they met His words, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” by saying, “We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man;” and when the Lord again said, “I speak that which I have seen with My Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father,” they curtly answer, “Abraham is our father.”The reason of their boasting is not very evident.
Earlier than this, John the Baptist was in the wilderness of Judæa, and his strong words shook the hearts of many men. Among those who came to him were Pharisees and Sadducees, whom John charged to “bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” Then, with much appearance of abruptness, he goes on “And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham,” As far as the Scripture shows, the Jews had not here brought up Abraham’s name; John himself did this, as though combating a well-known root of confidence. What that confidence was, we now inquire.
We must premise that creature-merit was, and is, a doctrine of Rabbinic Judaism, In other words, that it is possible for man to do something whereby he fairly earns blessing from God, and having earned, it is no act of grace for God to bestow mercies and blessings upon him — they are merited rewards, And this was held in the face of such passages as the following from the Old Testament: “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” “How then can man be justified with God?” is the question more than once asked in the Book of Job; “or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?”In the face of such passages, we say, known to the Jewish doctors, a system was set up which taught that man was not evil continually; that he had righteousness which might outweigh his demerits; and that man born of a woman might show a considerable amount of cleanness. May we not ask here, Were the Rabbis alone in such doctrines? Are they not now held on every hand in the face not only of the Old Testament but also of the New, where, at the cross of Christ, we learn God’s estimate of sin and man’s utter ruin?
It was taught then, that “as the merits and the sins of a man are weighed at the hour of his death,” (we quote the words of the Rabbis), “so likewise every year, on the festival of New Year’s Day, the sins of every one that cometh into the world are weighed against his merits. Every one who is found righteous is sealed to life. Every one who is found wicked is sealed to death. But the judgment of the intermediate class is suspended until the day of atonement.” That is an interval of ten days, and in those ten days, “Israel abounds in almsgiving and good works more than in all the year besides,” so that all may pass out of the intermediate class to that of the righteous. One great act of merit might outweigh many sins; one great sin might overbalance many merits. False as we know all this to be, no wonder that it afforded little ease to guilty consciences, and other salves had to be sought, such as the merit of circumcision, almsgiving, the expiatory power of physical suffering and of death, prayers for the dead, etc., each of which was credited with atoning worth, yet not one could make “the conscience perfect,” or give peace in the presence of God.
Amongst the many balms with which the Rabbinic Jew sought to cure his wound was the merits of the Fathers in general, and of Abraham in particular. “Everything comes to Israel on account of the merits of the Fathers,” states an ancient commentary. In the service of the Jewish synagogue (a service of very great antiquity) such prayers as the following occur: “If we should be rewarded according to our works, my heart would be rent with fear. Give me strength to remember the rectitude of mine ancestors.” “Regard the merits of our ancestors, who were born on this day... justify through their righteousness those who hope in Thee, O Lord, who art tremendous.” “Though we have transgressed against Thee yet remember the ancient patriarchs.” Of Sarah, it is said: “They depend on her merit: to be visited like her.”
Of Isaac: “They depend on the ashes of him who was bound as a lamb.” “May the sight of his ashes procure mercy for the remnant of his posterity!”
Of Jacob: “The strong foundation of the globe, and the great deep abyss, are not estimated in comparison with the chief foundation stone, on whose merit we depend for the acceptance of our prayer.”
Of Joseph: “O remember the merit of him from whose shoulder Thou didst remove the yoke of bondage.”
It is saddening to transcribe such passages, and to remember that for centuries and to this day, the poor sons of Israel have refused Him through whom alone salvation comes, and have put their trust in sinful men like unto themselves. For, true men of God as those patriarchs were, their salvation was wholly and entirely by grace; and they certainly would be the last to claim that they possessed so great an abundance of merit that it availed not only for themselves, but also for the justification of all their posterity. “The chief foundation stone,” as they call Jacob, summed up his life thus: “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been;” while even more striking is the fact that Abraham — their chief tower of strength — is the very man set forth in the Scripture as an example of one justified, not by works, but by grace through faith. Abraham “believed in the LORD, and He counted it to him for righteousness,” says the Law, which words are repeated and proved in the New Testament.
We pass on to Abraham, for he, above all other of the patriarchs, was the boast of the Jew. “Father Abraham,” was an expression which fell naturally from the lips of the rich man in torments. “O remember the deeds of the Oriental, may his righteousness and rectitude plead for us!” “The fearful day of visitation is come; its dread goads all flesh; they present themselves with bended knees. O may their repentance be accounted as a burnt offering! Thou who hast formed them judgeth all their thoughts, the rich and poor are all weighed in the balance. Remember the merit of him who said, ‘Shall not He do justice?’ O remember the tenor of his prayer in judgment! ‘Ere aught was created, Thou didst purpose to ordain him the rockfrom whence the nation was to spring. He was as the center, the support of all creatures.” Thus runs the new year’s service from which we have already quoted.
In like manner it was held that because of God’s love to Abraham He spared Lot in Sodom, and for his sake looked kindly upon the people of the earth. “Very few men like Abraham has the sun looked upon,” says the Talmud. “He was tried with ten powerful trials,” says the synagogue service, and was found faithful in all. For this cause “remember the piety of the father of multitude,” is again the mistaken prayer. Our readers are probably not all familiar with the ten trials referred to, some of which certainly are not found in the Scripture, and are mere fables; we briefly state the first and second. When Abraham was born — (Nimrod was the reigning king) — certain wise men and magicians saw a large and brilliant star rise in the east, and consume four stars from the four quarters of the heavens. Connecting the circumstance with the birth of Terah’s child, they saw in it a sign of future evil through him, and besought Nimrod to destroy him. Nimrod endeavored to buy the child, but Terah obstinately refused to sell him, and at last, upon the choice of delivering up the young Abraham or of being destroyed with all his family, Terah substituted a slave-child born on the same day, who was slain, and Abraham and his mother were hidden in a lonely cave till the child was thirteen years old, when he came forth, a wise and accomplished man. This was the first “powerful trial.” The second was that upon breaking Terah’s idols, he was cast into a fierce furnace which consumed those who cast him in thither, but in the midst of which he walked unharmed.In fact. it is the deliverance of Shadrach and the other two Hebrew princes transferred to Abraham, and spoiled in the transference. The fable— for it is unquestionably one — probably arose in this way: “Ur” (of the Chaldees) signifies “a light” or “fire,” and Abraham’s coming out of “Ur” has been transformed to coming out of “the fire.” Yet it was upon the piety displayed by Father Abraham in these fabulous events that the Jew rested for justification, and to this day they are recited in the Jewish service.
A recent writer — himself a son of Abram — referring to ancient Jewish belief, says, “In fact, the ships on the sea were preserved through the merit of Abraham; the rain descended on account of it. For his sake alone had Moses been allowed to ascend into heaven, and to receive the Law; for his sake had the sin of the golden calf been forgiven; his righteousness had on many occasions been the support of Israel’s cause Daniel had been heard for the merit of Abraham; nay, his merit availed even for the wicked.” In its extravagance the Midrash apostrophises Abraham: “If thy children were even (morally) dead bodies, without blood-vessels or bones, thy merit would avail for them.”
One other article of faith will be sufficient: “The wise men have said that Abraham our father sits at the door of hell [Gehinnom = Gehenna], and does not suffer any one that is circumcised to be cast into it.”
Bearing these facts in mind, we understand a little better the Jews’ boast: “We be Abraham’s seed;” we understand John the Baptist’s warning: “Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father;” while the words of St. Paul acquire a new significance if viewed as a corrective to these deluding, soul-destroying doctrines: “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abram.” And again: “If ye be Christ’s, THEN are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
Jr.