Promise and Assurance

A practical principle of extreme importance is brought out when Abraham asks, “Whereby shall I know?” (Gen. 15:88And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? (Genesis 15:8)) in reference to God’s promise: he is instantly pointed to a sacrifice. That is to say, when anyone needs “assurance,” he is pointed to Christ — not to his own feelings, spiritual experiences, good works, resolutions or anything else. The fact is, a man’s spiritual emotions are apt to be very variable and change with the barometer or the state of his health; but even if they were not so, the “feelings” form no proper ground whatever to rest on, in reference whether to assurance of salvation or to anything else. The feelings vary; but Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
This is an aspect of our Lord’s work very much overlooked; namely, that — quite distinct from the shedding of His blood in atonement — there is the sprinkling of His blood, as Victim of the covenant, to ratify and seal it. All the promises of God in Him are yea [that is, affirmed and ratified], and in Him Amen [that is, culminated and fulfilled] (2 Cor. 1:2020For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. (2 Corinthians 1:20)). But this word “Amen” is a very remarkable one: it is a symbol-word of absolute and final affirmative: it is the “formula of acquiescence” amongst the Jews. It was the word which our Lord habitually used (being translated “verily” about 100 times in the Gospels. Generally speaking it is not translated but is carried into the different languages of the earth intact. Like a few other words of sacred importance, it is untranslatable and is pronounced by all tongues alike. Two foreigners of diverse languages met on a steamer in the South Pacific. One of them who was a Christian thought from the demeanor of the other that he must be one also, but he knew no word by which to accost him. At length he approached, raised his hands and eyes, and said “Hallelujah!” to which his companion responded, putting his hand on his breast, “Amen!” They compressed a great deal of excellent and orthodox theology in those two words and did one another much good.
The “Amen”
For “Hallelujah” is the pervading harmony, and “Amen” the closing full stop or expression of the vast universe. So we find in Revelation 3:14,14And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Revelation 3:14) when, at the Laodicean epoch, every purpose and promise of God seems thwarted and broken, Christ is presented as the AMEN. There is a strange presentation to Laodicea in every way. In all the former churches the Lord had been characterized by some of His possessions or attributes — even to the beloved Philadelphia where He “hath the key of David;” but in Laodicea (the present or approaching condition of the professing church) we have not the attributes or powers of Christ presented as a means of remedy, but Christ Himself. He is called the Faithful and True Witness. As other witnesses for God have proved unfaithful and untrue, now that all things approach the end, God goes back to the beginning. The Amen, in whom all the divine and eternal decrees center and coalesce — who affirms and fulfills every word which has proceeded out of the mouth of God, and collects the (apparently) broken lines of His counsels, reconciles, formulates, and fulfills them. The wailing discords of the groaning creation are “resolved” into an everlasting harmony in this closing word — AMEN.
Abraham’s Offering
“The fowls came down” (Gen. 15:1111And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away. (Genesis 15:11)), for the evil spiritual powers and principles are ceaselessly trying to take away the sign of the covenant; that is, to rob us of Christ, or some part or attribute of Christ. Abraham shows us what we should do: he did not compromise with them nor give place to them, he “drove them away.” We need ceaseless vigilance and uncompromising firmness in this respect, to yield (doctrinally) no particle of the truth concerning either His personality or His work, His name or His word.
Then the patriarch is cast into a horror of darkness and oppressed sleep, but he wakes again. It is typical of what his posterity should go through of oppression and suffering before they should rise in the national resurrection of which Daniel speaks. And through all the horror and oppression goes the smoking furnace and the burning lamp (Gen. 15:1717And 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. (Genesis 15:17)), passing between the bodies of the slain victims. This was how the covenant was made and what it signified. For God had ordained that His people should be purified as in a fire and yet be sustained by the lamp to guide them. This would be true of both the lines of promise; the stars, the heavenly family, and the sand, the earthly family. Of the former — the spiritual family — none would question that this is the purpose and destiny; but of the latter, the fleshly family of Abraham, we need to be reminded, now in the day of their rejection, that the decree is no less certain to be fulfilled.
J. C. Bayley