Romans

Originally posted at The Calvinist Gadfly.

Q. 13. What has God especially decreed concerning angels and men?

A. God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, has elected some angels to glory; and in Christ has chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof: and also, according to his sovereign power, and the unsearchable counsel of his own will (whereby he extends or withholds favor as he pleases), has passed by and foreordained the rest to dishonor and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his justice.

Question 13 definitely takes us into the deep end of the theological pool, and if we get too caught up in those things that pertain to “the unsearchable counsel of his own will,” we will only tread water until we become fatigued and drown. Am I one of those “chosen . . . to eternal life”? Are you? Never mind that.

Seek the Lord while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

—Isaiah 55:6–7

Have you sought the Lord? Have you found him? Then now is the time to consider his eternal decree for you:

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

—Romans 8:29–30

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

—Ephesians 1:3–6

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

—1 John 3:2

Before the creation of the world, we were predestined to ultimate glory. Our entire salvation was worked out, from our election in Christ to our final glorification with Christ. In the in-between time, we are day-by-day being conformed to his image. One day, in our glorified state, we will be like him. We will be like him because we will see him, not “in a mirror dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12), but just as he is in the full glory of his perfection. We will see Christ as he is, holy and blameless, and we will finally be perfectly holy and blameless, conformed to his image. What a glorious day that will be!

What, then, are we to be doing now? If seeing Christ as he is will be the final cause of our future glorification, does it not stand to reason that looking to Christ now will be the means of our present sanctification? The writer to the Hebrews tells us it is so:

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

—Hebrews 12:1–3

Q. What has God especially decreed concerning you?
A. Look to Jesus!

Get your own copy of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms here.

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— 13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16 The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. 17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. 19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. 20 The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Romans 5:12–21

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. . . .

So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

—1 Corinthians 15:20–22, 45

Can one believe in theistic evolution and still be a Christian? Yes, he can, given enough ignorance,* and lacking logical thinking skills. But no one who knows what the New Testament says about the gospel and about Adam, and can perform simple mathematic functions, can hold to any evolutionary theory without denying the gospel. John MacArthur, commenting on Romans 5:12–14, explains:

The fact that Adam and Eve not only were actual historical figures but were the original human beings from whom all others descended is absolutely critical to Paul’s argument here and is critical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If a historical Adam did not represent all mankind in sinfulness, a historical Christ could not represent all mankind in righteousness. If all mankind did not fall with the first Adam, all mankind could not be saved by Christ, the second and last Adam (see 1 Corinthians 15:20–22, 45).

—John MacArthur, MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 1–8 (Moody, 1991), 294.

* I know: “given enough ignorance” is not a logical phrase, but you know what I mean.

Originally posted at The Calvinist Gadfly.

Q. 22. Did all mankind fall in that first transgression?

A. The covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in that first transgression.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

—Romans 5:12–14

Lest any doubt the catechism’s answer, take note: everyone dies. The universal mortality we witness all around us tells us that something has gone horribly wrong, and none are untouched. Death is in the news daily. We watch our friends and family get old, get sick, and die. Indeed, we look in the mirror and witness the steady decay of our own bodies. We are going to die.

How did this dreadful state of affairs come to be? The Apostle explains:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, . . . It might seem odd that Paul says, “through one man.” After all, Eve was there too, and actually started it, right? Yet God held Adam fully responsible, and a little more than five thousand years later, inspired the words, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). The headship of the man is shown to be a creation ordinance. It is not a result of the Fall, and certainly not an invention of a chauvinist apostle.

Notice that Paul does not speak of plural sins, but of sin. It does not refer to specific unrighteous acts, but to an innate condition. Cattle “moo”; that is something they do. But cattle are ruminants. It is a characteristic of cattle to ruminate because that is what they are. Just so, sin is a part of the human condition. We do not become sinners when we sin. Rather, we are born that way.

and death through sin, . . . God warned Adam that if he disobeyed, he would “surely die” (Genesis 2:17), and so he did.

and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— . . . As emphasized in the first paragraph above, the human race has a 100% mortality rate. With the exception of two men whom God miraculously caught away, every single person who has ever lived has died or is dying. Death awaits everyone, because everyone is a sinner. If “in Adam all die,” and all die “because all sinned,” it is just simple math to conclude that all mankind did indeed fall in that first transgression.

Only one man has ever been without sin. He is the lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. And even he died, when he took our sin upon himself — which brings us to the good news. Our text begins with a “therefore,” connecting the following verses to the previous promise of reconciliation to God, and ends with a hopeful finger pointed toward “him who was to come,” “through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (v. 11). However, the Westminster Divines require us to wait for that. We’ll pick this up again around Question 30.

Get your own copy of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms here.

Originally posted at The Calvinist Gadfly.

Q. 23. Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?

A. The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written,

“There is none righteous, not even one;

There is none who understands,

There is none who seeks for god;

All have turned aside, together they have become useless;

There is none who does good,

There is not even one.

Their throat is an open grave,

With their tongues they keep deceiving,

The poison of asps is under their lips;

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness;

Their feet are swift to shed blood,

Destruction and misery are in their paths,

And the path of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

—Romans 3:9–18 (cf. Psalm 14:1–3, 53:1–3, 5:9, 140:3, 10:7, 59:7, 36:1)

In the beginning of the chapter, Paul responds to the slanderous charge of licentiousness, concluding that his accusers are justly condemned. Then he turns back on himself and his fellow Christians, asking, As bad as they are, are we any better? (v. 8). No, we “are all under sin,” Jews and Greeks, Pagans and Christians alike.

Then he presents the evidence, a litany of Old Testament declarations that his Jewish audience could not challenge: “as it is written . . .”

All mankind is characterized by unrighteousness, ignorance, indifference toward God, rebelliousness. Consequently, they are spiritually useless and universally unprofitable (v. 10–11).

This character is evident in their speech (Luke 6:45), which is marked by deceit, cursing, and bitterness (v. 13–14). That may sound a bit extreme — surely not everyone has such corrupt speech — but everyone, in his natural state, is indeed “a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6: 5). It’s only a matter of degree, really, and God isn’t interested in comparing malicious lies with “little white lies” and half-truths, or vitriolic, hate-filled invectives with condemnation muttered sotto voce. Sinful speech is sinful, whether or not it’s turned up to eleven.

The corrupt character of sinners is also evident in their actions (v. 15–17). Again, the charge may sound extreme — Their feet are swift to shed blood — but again, it is only a matter of degree. Jesus taught us that “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.” The natural man, whether or not he actually extinguishes a life, has a murderous heart, and is swift to respond with hostility when crossed. He does not naturally seek peace, except though conquest, and so he leaves a trail of destruction and misery in his own life, and the lives of others.

Why is he like this? Because he has no fear of God (v. 18). Because he has no fear of God, he makes a god of himself, living as though his purpose is to glorify himself and enjoy himself forever. Consequently, when he is offended, or deprived of his desire, he reacts as though divine justice has been violated, and visits judgment, inasmuch as he is able, on the offenders.

This describes every human being, to one degree or another. This is the estate of sin and misery into which mankind fell.

Get your own copy of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms here.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

We Know Not When
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

We know not when , we know not where,
   We know not what that world will be;
But this we know: it will be fair
      To see.

With heart athirst and thirsty face
   We know and know not what shall be:
Christ Jesus bring us of His grace
      To see.

Christ Jesus bring us of His grace,
   Beyond all prayers our hope can pray,
One day to see Him face to Face,
      One day.

—Christina Rossetti, Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).

Romans 1:14

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

Paul has many names for himself; none of them lofty, all of them lowly; the highest, simply “an apostle.” Sometimes it is Paul “the servant of Jesus Christ”; sometimes, Paul “the aged”; sometimes, Paul “the prisoner”; sometimes it is “less than the least of all saints”; sometimes, the “chief of sinners.” Here it is another, “a debtor.” It is then of Paul the debtor we are to speak. It is himself that takes the name; he proclaims his debts; no man lays them to his charge; God does not accuse him. It is some profound, inexpressible feeling that leads him to cry out, “I am debtor.”

I. To whom is he a debtor? Not to self; not to the flesh; not to the law. He owes nothing to these. We might say, he is debtor to God; to Christ; to the cross. But these are not now in his mind. It is to Greek and Jew, wise and unwise; men of all nations; the whole fallen world, that he feels himself a debtor. He seems to stand on some high eminence, and looking round on all kingdoms, and nations, and tongues, with all their uncounted millions, he says, “To all these I am debtor, and I must pay the debt.” They have done nothing for him indeed; they have persecuted, stoned, condemned, reviled him; yet that does not alter his position or cancel his debt. Do to him what they like,—hate him, imprison him, scourge him, bind him,—he is their debtor still. His debt to them is founded on something which all this ill-usage, this malice cannot alter. He loves them still; pities them, pleads with them, beseeches them to be reconciled to God; confesses himself to be their debtor in spite of all. We speak of the world being a debtor to Paul; so, in one sense, it was; but in another, Paul is a debtor to the world. Yes, a Christian is debtor to the world,—not to his family only, or his nation,—but to the whole world. Let this thought dwell in us, and work in us; expanding and enlarging us; elevating our vision; throwing back our horizon, delivering us from all narrow heartedness on the one hand, and all false liberality on the other. We speak of the world being debtor to the church; let us never forget that according to Paul’s way of thinking, and to the mind of the Holy Spirit, the church is debtor to the world.

II. When and how he became a debtor. Even as a Jew he was a debtor; for he possessed something which the world did not; and the moment I come into possession of something which my neighbor or my fellow man has not, I become debtor to that fellow man! This is God’s way of reckoning, though it is not man’s; for God’s thoughts are not our thoughts; and it is love only that can teach us to feel and reason thus. Yet it is true reasoning, it is divine logic. It was when Paul became possessed of the unsearchable riches of Christ that he felt himself a debtor to the world. He had found a treasure, and he could not conceal it; he must speak out; he must tell abroad what he felt. He was surrounded by needy fellow men, in a poor empty world: Should he keep the treasure to himself? No. As the lepers of Samaria felt themselves debtors to the starving city, so did Paul to a famishing world. But there is much more than this,—a higher “when” and “how.” Who had done all this for him, and made him to differ? It was God,—Christ Jesus. It is to God, then, that in the first place he feels himself an infinite debtor in the fullest sense. To God Himself he cannot pay this debt directly, but he can indirectly, by pouring out the God-given treasure upon others. His debt directly is to God; but then, indirectly, it is to the world. Thus the Christian man feels his debt,—his obligation to the world because of his obligation to God. But then a man must know that he has the treasure himself before he can be quickened into a feeling of his responsibility to others. The love of Christ must constrain us; a sense of what we owe to him must impel and stimulate us. Do you know yourself to be the possessor of this infinite treasure? and under the expanding pressure of this, are you roused to feel your infinite debt to all?

III. How he pays the debt. By carrying to them that gospel which he had received. That gospel, or the gift which that gospel reveals, has enriched himself infinitely, he takes these riches to others; and so he endeavors to pay his debt to God by enriching the world. He goes to Corinth,—doing what? Paying there a part of his infinite debt. He goes to Athens, to Thessalonica, to Rome,—doing what? Paying in each place part of the infinite debt which he owes to God, for his love, his pardon, and the hope of the glory. He is a rich man, and can afford to give!

We pay our debt,

(1.) By making known the gospel to others. Speak out the glad tidings, wherever you go. You are debtors. Thus pay the debt.

(2.) By prayer for others. We can reach millions by prayer, otherwise inaccessible to us. Pray for others; not your own circle only, but the world. Go round the world. Embrace all nations in your intercessions.

(3.) By our givings. In giving let us remember what we are doing, paying our debt to God. Shew your sense of his love, his gifts, by your generosity.

(4.) By our consistent life. This, at least, is expected of us. Do not misrepresent the gospel. Be a true and faithful witness for God.

Yes, you are debtors to all. Shew that you feel this. Be constrained by a loving sense of your infinite obligations and responsibilities to Him who loved you.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Originally posted at The Calvinist Gadfly.

Q. 24. What is sin?

A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

—Romans 3:23

With apologies to Westminster, I think the catechism needs a little help here. Not that the given answer is wrong, but that it doesn’t quite get to the bottom of things. Sin, it says, is any variance from God’s law. But what is that?

God’s law is nothing more or less than a picture of his own character. In giving the commandments, he was telling us, “This is how I am. Do this, and you will be like me, as you must” (Matthew 5:48; 1 Peter 1:15–16). None of us do, of course, which brings us to Romans 3:23, which paraphrased says, “I am the standard. You don’t measure up.”

With the bar set so high, we cannot help despairing of any hope. But remember, these are the middle chapters in the book. We’ve read the introduction, and are now in the midst of conflict. The resolution is coming.

Get your own copy of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms here.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Continual Repentance

O God of grace,

Thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute,
and hast imputed his righteousness
to my soul,
clothing me with a bridegroom’s robe,
decking me with jewels of holiness.

But in my Christian walk I am still in rags;
my best prayers are stained with sin;
my penitential tears are so much impurity;
my confessions of wrong are so many
aggravations of sin;
my receiving the Spirit is tinctured with
selfishness.

I need to repent of my repentance;

I need my tears to be washed;

I have no robe to bring to cover my sins,
no loom to weave my own righteousness;

I am always standing clothed in filthy garments,
and by grace am always receiving change of
raiment,
for thou dost always justify the ungodly;

I am always going into the far country,
and always returning home as a prodigal,
always saying, Father, forgive me,
and thou art always bringing forth
the best robe.

Every morning let me wear it,
every evening return in it,
go out to the day’s work in it,
be married in it,
be wound in death in it,
stand before the great white throne in it,
enter heaven in it shining as the sun.

Grant me never to lose sight of
the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
the exceeding righteousness of salvation,
the exceeding glory of Christ,
the exceeding beauty of holiness,
the exceeding wonder of grace.

—The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).

Romans 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

It is of great moment to know the proper value of a thing before we either praise or dispraise it. Let us beware of either overrating or underrating anything of which we are called to speak. Of the gospel the apostle speaks as one who knew its value. Do we so know its value as to say, What shall it profit me to gain the world and lose the gospel?

The apostle so knew it as to be able to say, I am not ashamed of it; just as elsewhere speaking of the cross he says, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He was not ashamed of it at Jerusalem, or Athens, or Rome. Many things were there to make him ashamed of it; Jewish prejudice and Gentile pride. But these prevailed not. In spite of contempt and hatred he held it fast.

We are apt to be ashamed of it. It looks weak, foolish, unintellectual, unphilosophical. It lags behind the age. It has become obsolete! It is beginning to be supplanted by learning and eloquence! Men are apt to shun the gospel as a feeble, childish thing, that has done its work in time past, but is giving place to something higher and more in accordance with the “deep instincts of humanity.”

There were some places in which the apostle might have been specially tempted to be ashamed of the gospel, or afraid of preaching it. At Jerusalem, for there the whole strength of Jewish ritualism rose against it; at Athens, for there it was confronted by the power of Grecian wisdom; at Ephesus, for there the dazzling subtleties of heathen magic rose against it; at Corinth, for there the torrent of human lust and pleasure rushed against it; at Rome, for there was time concentrated energy of earthly idolatry. Yet none of these things moved him. He was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, though all that was intellectual, and eloquent, and sensual, and refined, and powerful in humanity protested against it, or mocked it as folly.

We are tempted in our day to be ashamed of the gospel. It is thought to be bare, unintellectual, almost childish by many. Hence they would overlay it with argument and eloquence, to make it more respectable and more attractive. Every such attempt to add to it is being ashamed of it. The old apostolic gospel seems so bald that before we can avow connection with it, we must introduce something like philosophy into it! This is not treating it as Paul did. Some mistake it, others reject it, others are indifferent to it. But there are others who are ashamed of it.

If any might have been ashamed of it, Paul much more. His education, his life, his teachers, his companions were all such as to make him turn aside from a thing so plain. But, rising above all, he protests that he is not ashamed of that which so many of his former friends and teachers scorn.

But why was the apostle not ashamed of it? Had it been the feeble, childish thing which men said it was, he would have been ashamed of it. But it was not so. It was mighty; mightier than philosophy, or argument, or eloquence. It was “power.”

Many “apologists” for the gospel have, in their defense of it, assumed somewhat different ground from that of the apostle here. They defend it because it is noble, philosophical, reasonable, benevolent. It is all this, and more. Yet such are not Paul’s reasons for glorifying in it. He has fathomed man’s infinite need and misery; he has, with divinely opened eyes, looked into man’s present condition and his prospects. He sees in that gospel that which meets man’s great necessity as a lost being; and it is this glorious suitableness that makes him prize it so much. He is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God unto salvation. Had it been less than this, however intellectual and philosophical, he would have been ashamed of it. No other excellence, however great, however appreciated by the human intellect, could compensate for the want of this. To be the wisdom of man, the wisdom of the world, the wisdom of words, was nothing to him. In thus listening to Paul’s reasons for not being ashamed of the gospel, let us learn what he thinks of that gospel, and what he understands it to be. (1.) It is the embodiment of God’s power for the salvation of the sinner; (2.) it is the revelation of God’s righteousness to the sinner. This is the sum of his reasons for glorying in the gospel of Christ.

I. It is God’s power unto salvation. Men were lost. Nothing but a great salvation could deliver; a salvation which embodied omnipotence. We may say it is a gospel preceded by omnipotence, succeeded by omnipotence, accompanied by omnipotence, containing omnipotence. God’s power was needed. Where has God placed it? In the gospel! Out of that gospel it goes forth to save the sinner. In that gospel omnipotence is wrapped up. Out of that gospel omnipotence goes forth to save. The power that is needed for the salvation of a sinner is that which is contained in the gospel. The gospel alone contains this saving power, and as such the apostle is not ashamed of it. But every one is not saved, even by this mighty gospel. Who, then, are saved by it? Only they who believe. Into all who believe, this mighty gospel comes with saving power, working in them and for them the reversal of all that made them lost; the whole of that which God calls salvation. It is in believing this gospel that we are saved; saved at once, freely, completely, forever. This gospel is wide as the world. It embraces all kindreds, and nations, and tongues. It goes first to the Jew; it begins at Jerusalem; but it does not end there. It goes round the earth; it takes in all men, the Greek as well as the Jew,—barbarian, Scythian, bond and free. To every man this mighty gospel comes and says, “Believe and be saved.” There is salvation for thee; not by working, or waiting, or praying, or reforming, but simply not by believing. He who believes is saved, whoever or whatever he may be.

II. It is the revelation of God’s righteousness. This mighty gospel saves in a righteous way. Its power unto salvation consists in its being a revelation of the righteousness of God. This righteousness is not that which we call the attribute of God. Nor does it merely mean “God’s method of justification”; though it is indeed such. It is that righteousness which was displayed in Him who is the righteous One, whose name is “Jehovah our righteousness.” It is a righteousness planned by God, provided and prepared by God, exhibited and unfolded by God to the sinner.

(1.) It is a righteousness revealed. No longer concealed, or but darkly unfolded; but fully and brightly displayed by God in Christ.

(2.) It is a divine righteousness. Not merely human, yet still human; human, yet divine; the righteousness of Him who was both God and man.

(3.) It is a righteousness by faith. This is the meaning of the words. “Therein is that righteousness of God, which comes to us by believing, revealed to be believed.” We get the whole of this glorious righteousness in accepting God’s testimony to it and to Him who wrought it out.

(4.) It is righteousness presented to us to be believed. God holds it out to us. He says, Take this from my hand; and if you ask, How am I to take it? the answer is, Believe what God says to you concerning it, and straightway it is yours.

(5.) It is the same righteousness which was possessed by the Old Testament saints. “The just shall hive by faith,” or “the just by faith shall live,” are the words of the ancient prophet, not merely predicting what shall be, but what has been and what is. It was Paul’s favorite text. It was also Luther’s. We become, or are constituted just, by or in believing; and we live by and in believing; for both these propositions are contained in the passage. One justification from the beginning, one faith, one life! The patriarchs “lived” by believing in Him who was to come; we “live” by believing in Him who has come. But it is one Saviour, one salvation, one cross.

God’s testimony to this righteousness is very full and explicit. He tells us what kind of righteousness it is, whose it is, and how we get it. It is divine, perfect, glorious, suitable; begun, carried out, completed by Christ during His life and death below: “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” He who believes the divine testimony gets the righteousness. It becomes at once the property of him that believeth,—not of him that worketh. “He that believeth is justified from all things.” All the evil that is in us passes over to Christ, our surety; all the excellence that is in Him passes over to us as soon as we accept time testimony. “He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

The power of the gospel is wholly saving; it is armed with power,—just in order to save. There is nothing else in our world that can save but this. This gospel contains in it all that is needful to save. It reaches and reverses the condition of the lost. Nothing else does this. It saves, heals, comforts, gladdens, brings out of darkness into light. Salvation! This is its object. Nothing less than this. Not merely to reform, or elevate, or refine; but to save. Whatever it does less than this is in vain. It is salvation that we preach in preaching the gospel,—present, immediate, sure, eternal salvation! What then has the gospel done for you? Has it saved you? If not, it has come to you in vain. If it has only made you moral, or kept you moral, it has fallen short of its end.

It is through believing that this salvation is realized. We are saved when we believe the gospel. A gospel not believed will do nothing for us, but condemn. A believed gospel saves; and saves as soon as believed.

That gospel is the Holy Spirit’s testimony to God’s free love, and to the finished propitiation of the cross. The reception of that divine testimony is salvation. Has this salvation, O man, found its way into you? Or is it still resisted? Is the evil heart of unbelief still shutting it out? Is it still appealing to you in vain? Is it still telling to you the old story of the love of God, the love of Christ, but telling it in vain? Have you not yet discovered the good news which it brings to you! Are you still unsaved? Unsaved, because rejecting this gospel, and refusing the free gift it brings.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Hymn 57. (c. m.)
Original sin. Rom. v. 12, &c.; Psa. li. 5; Job xiv. 4.

Backward with humble shame we look
On our original;
How is our nature dash’d and broke
In our first father’s fall!

To all that’s good averse and blind,
But prone to all that’s ill
What dreadful darkness veils our mind!
How obstinate our will!

[Conceived in sin, O wretched state!
Before we draw our breath
The first young pulse begins to beat
Iniquity and death.

How strong in our degen’rate blood
The old corruption reigns,
And, mingling with the crooked flood,
Wanders through all our veins.]

[Wild and unwholesome as the root
Will all the branches be;
How can we hope for living fruit
From such a deadly tree?

What mortal power from things unclean
Can pure productions bring?
Who can command a vital stream
From an infected spring?]

Yet, mighty God! thy wondrous love
Can make our nature clean,
While Christ and grace prevail above
The tempter, death, and sin.

The second Adam shall restore
The ruins of the first;
Hosannah to that sovereign power
That new-creates our dust!

—from The Psalms & Hymns of Isaac Watts. Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book I: Collected from the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 1997).

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer . . .

—Romans 1:28

They quickly forgot His works . . .

—Psalm 106:13

God has well remembered man; remembers him every day. God might easily forget man; he is so insignificant, worthless, unloveable. But He does not. He has never done so. This world, evil as it is, has been truly, what one has called it, “His well-beloved world,”—His well-remembered creation. Each of us, however poor, however sinful, is a fragment of that world, that race which He has never forgotten: “Thou shalt not be forgotten of me.” Each moment’s mercies are tokens of the divine mindfulness. He ever retains us in His knowledge and memory.

God desires to be remembered by man. He has taken unspeakable pains to keep Himself before His creatures, so as to make forgetfulness on their part the greatest of all impossibilities. In everything that God has set before our eyes or ears, He says, Remember me. In every star, every flower, every mountain, every stream,—in every joy, every comfort, every blessing of daily life,—God says, Remember me. How affecting this desire of God to be remembered by man! Yet how has man responded to it? We shall see. The world’s history, and Israel’s history not less, have shewn how God’s wish to be kept in affectionate remembrance by the creatures He has made has been met. “They gave me hatred for my love.” They did not “like to retain Him in their knowledge.”

It is not, however, merely a “deity,” a divine being, that is to be remembered. It is the one living and true God. Every departure from this is idolatry and dishonour. This true God wishes to be remembered,

(1.) Reverently. He is great and glorious; to be had in reverence of all creature hood. Reverence and godly fear are His due.

(2.) Confidingly. His character is such that He deserves to be trusted. Trustful, childlike remembrance, is what He expects of us.

(3.) Joyfully. Not by constraint, or through terror, or hope of profit; but with the full and happy heart.

(4.) Lovingly. We love Him because He first loved us. Loving remembrance He would fain have. Nothing less will do.

(5.) Steadfastly. Not by fits and starts; at certain “devotional seasons,” but always. “Perpetual remembrance” is what God asks,—”everlasting remembrance.”

This God, whose name is Jehovah, is worthy to be remembered, He is so infinitely glorious, and good, and great, and loveable. The wonder is, how one so great should ever for a moment be forgotten. That He should forget us, so insignificant, would not be surprising; but that we should forget Him, so great and mighty, is inconceivably marvelous. We may suppose a creature, an atom of the dust, sitting alone and admiring this great Being, and saying, He may not think of me, or notice me, who am such a grain of sand, but I cannot help continually thinking of Him, looking up to Him, praising Him, loving Him, whether He cares for me or not; whether I am overlooked or not,—if He will only allow me thus to praise and love. But can we suppose the opposite? the worm of the earth never thinking of this great God at all, and yet this God continually thinking of Him!

Yet man forgets God! He hears of Him, and then forgets Him. He sees His works, and then forgets Him. He acknowledges deliverances, and then forgets Him. Thus it is that man deals with God. For his fellow men man’s memory serves him well, but towards God it is utterly treacherous.

Israel is frequently charged with such things as these:

(1.) They forgot His words. All that He had spoken, in grace or righteousness, as warning or as love, they forgot. His words were to them as idle tales. Thus we treat our God.

(2.) They forgot His works. Miracle on miracle of the most stupendous kind did He for Israel, in Egypt and in the desert, as if never wearied with blessing them, yet the work was no sooner done than it was out of mind. They sang His praise, and then forgot His works.

(3.) They forgot Himself. Yes, Himself! Their God, their Redeemer, their Rock, their Strength! They thrust Him out of their thoughts and memories. He and they were to live apart; to have no intercourse with each other. They were to live in His world, and forget Himself; to enjoy His gifts, but not Himself; to breathe His air, bask in His sunshine, drink His rivers, climb His mountains, sail over His wide sea in storm or calm, and forget Himself? “They did not like to retain God in their knowledge.”

Forgetfulness of God is God’s charge against His creatures. He does not exaggerate their guilt, or bring out into view the gross and hideous crimes of the race. He simply says, “You have forgotten me.” That is enough. “My people have forgotten me.” It is they who forget God that are turned into hell. This may seem to some a small sin, a negative evil, a sin of omission; but God places it in the foreground of iniquity. “Consider this ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces when none can deliver” (Psalm 50:22).

God lays great stress upon remembering Him and His works. Often did He use that word to Israel, “Remember.” “Remember the way that the Lord led thee.” “Remember the commandments of the Lord.” “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” “Remember thy Creator.”

In the New Testament the words of the Lord himself must occur to every one, “This do in remembrance of me”; amid the response of the church, “We will remember Thy love more than wine.”

Forget not, O man, the God that made thee. He has given thee no cause to forget Him. He ever keeps thee in mind; keep Him in mind.

Amid all thy forgetfulness let not Him be forgotten. Amid all thy remembrances let Him be ever uppermost. His remembrance will be joy and peace, fragrance, and refreshment, and strength. Retain Him in thy knowledge; root Him in thy memory; fix Him in thy heart forever.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

—Romans 5:15

It may indeed be justly inferred, that since the fall of Adam had such an effect as to produce the ruin of many, much more efficacious is the grace of God to the benefit of many; inasmuch as it is admitted, that Christ is much more powerful to save, than Adam was to destroy.

—John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries Volume XIX, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans (Baker Books, 2009), 206.

But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

—Romans 5:15

Jesus Christ broke the power of sin and death, but the converse is not true. Sin and death cannot break the power of Jesus Christ. The condemnation of Adam's sin is reversible, the redemption of Jesus Christ is not. The effect of adam's act is permanent only if not nullified by Christ. The effect of Christ's act, however, is permanent for believing individuals and not subject to reversal or nullification. We have the great assurance that once we are in Jesus Christ, we are in Him forever.

—John MacArthur, MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 1–8 (Moody, 1991), 304.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

The Assistance and Influence of the Blessed Spirit
Philip Doddridge (1702–1751)

Tis not in my weak pow’r alone,
To melt this stubborn heart of stone,
My soul to change, my life to mend,
Or seek to Christ, that gen’rous friend.

’Tis God’s own Spirit from above
Fixes our faith, inflames our love.
And makes a life divine begin
In wretched souls, long dead in sin.

That most important gift of heaven
To those that ask and seek is given;
Then be it my immediate care
With importunity of prayer,

To seek it in a Savior’s name,
Who will not turn my hopes to shame.
God from on high, His grace shall pour,
My soul shall flourish more and more.

Press on with speed from grace to grace,
Till glory end and crown the race.
Since then the Father and the Son,
And Holy Spirit, three in one,

Glorious beyond all speech and thought,
Have jointly my salvation wrought;
I’ll join them in my songs of praise,
Now and through heaven’s eternal days.

—Worthy Is the Lamb (Soli Deo Gloria, 2004).

But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets

—Romans 3:21

It is of sin and righteousness that the apostle speaks so fully and so minutely throughout this whole epistle. Up to the verse from which our text is taken, he has been settling this point, that man is a sinner, and needs a righteousness, else he cannot stand before God. Circumcision cannot give a righteousness; it merely tells us that a righteousness is needed, no more. The law cannot give a righteousness; it is merely a declaration of what righteousness is, and that the unrighteous shall not stand before God. It condemns, it cannot justify. By the law is the knowledge of sin, and thus every mouth is stopped, and the whole world brought in guilty before God. But, notwithstanding this, there is a righteousness; a righteousness which meets the case of the unrighteous in every part; a righteousness which can reverse even the verdict of the law against the unrighteous; a righteousness on the footing of which we can stand with boldness in the presence of the holy God without either shame or fear. It is of this righteousness that he proceeds to speak in the words of our text. Let us hear what he affirms regarding it.

I. First, it is the righteousness of God. It is a divine, not a human righteousness. That righteousness which we had lost in Adam was, after all, but a human thing, finite hike him who lost it; but that which we gain is a divine righteousness, and by being divine, forms an infinite compensation for that which Adam lost for us; and we, in receiving it, are made partakers of a most glorious exchange. It is called the righteousness of God, because it is a righteousness provided by Him; a righteousness which was conceived by Him, set on foot, and carried out in every part by Him, entirely and by Him alone; a righteousness, in the providing of which we had nothing to do, even in thought or in desire, far less in execution; a righteousness, the origin and accomplishment of which are wholly and purely God’s, not man’s at all. Again, it is called the righteousness of God, because it is a righteousness founded on the sufferings of the Son of God. It behoved Him, who is the only-begotten of the Father to take flesh and suffer, ere the very first step towards the providing of that righteousness could be taken. And He has suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God; and thus the foundation of a divine righteousness has been laid.

Again, it is called the righteousness of God, because it is a righteousness made up of time doings of the Son of God. It is not merely with His sufferings that this righteousness has to do, but it is with His doings as well. These two things enter into its composition, so that, without both of them, it would be imperfect. What He did on earth in magnifying the law and making it honourable; what He did on earth in obeying the Father’s will in every jot and tittle, makes up this righteousness. These doings of His were infinitely pleasing to the Father, infinitely glorifying to the Father’s holiness, and infinitely honouring to that law which our unrighteousness had violated and dishonoured.

Further, it is called the righteousness of God, because it provides such a compensation for human unrighteousness, that it not only takes it all away, but brings in a new and far higher and surer footing for the sinner to rest on. It introduces a new standing of acceptance, so that the man who becomes a partaker of this provided righteousness becomes divinely accepted, divinely righteous, divinely blessed. It is not a mere simple righteousness that God sets forth; it is a super abounding one, an infinite one, one which can leave no room for doubt on our part at all, one that is most amply sufficient to meet our case were we the very guiltiest on whom the sun has ever shone.

II. Secondly, it is a righteousness without the law. He does not mean that it is in any sense an unlawful righteousness,—a righteousness not based on law,—a righteousness, in providing which, law has been set aside in any sense; but it means a righteousness which, in so far as we are concerned, has nothing to do with law at all. It is not a righteousness which asks any doing, or working, or obeying, on our part, in order to complete it, in order to make it what it is—“the righteousness of God”; for did it require anything of this kind on our part, it would cease to be what it is here represented to be, “the righteousness of God,” and would become, to a large extent at least, “the righteousness of man.” This righteousness does not send us to the law in order to be justified; it does not throw us upon our own works, either in whole or in part; it proceeds from first to last upon such principles as these, announced elsewhere in this epistle, and in the Epistle to the Galatians: “By time deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.” And again, as it is written “To him that worketh not, but believeth in Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” In no sense, and at no time, does it say to us, “Do this, and thou shalt live; do this, and thou shalt be saved.” In no sense does it give us the idea of a thing far off, but of a thing nigh, at our very side; not of a thing to be toiled for, a thing to be waited for on our part. In no such sense has this righteousness anything to do with law, or with our doing of the law. For what is the whole of the Epistle to the Galatians but a protest against the idea that this righteousness of God has anything to do with the law, in so far as the sinner is concerned? In so far as God is concerned, in so far as the Son of God is concerned, it had everything to do with law; but in so far as we are concerned, it has nothing to do with it; it is a righteousness without the law. Let us, brethren, hold fast then this truth of the gospel, this foundation truth; righteousness without law, righteousness founded in no sense upon our keeping of the law; but wholly and absolutely upon this fact, that another has kept the law for us, and that other no less than the Son of God Himself.

III. Thirdly, This righteousness has been “manifested” acceptance. “Now,” he says, “the righteousness of God is manifested;” it has been clearly brought to light, so that there can be no mistake concerning it, and no mystery in it. It is not a thing hidden, wrapped up, reserved, held back, veiled from our view. It is a thing clearly brought out today, and shone upon by God’s own light, so that the difficulty seems to be, not how to see it, but how to miss seeing it, how to keep ourselves from apprehending it. It has been clearly manifested. God has been at infinite pains to bring it forward to view, both on our own account, and on account of Him whose righteousness it is. In every way He has sought to guard it against the possibility of being mistaken by man. In every way has He taken precautions against this being hidden from view, or darkened by the words of man’s wisdom. He has set this righteousness as a star in the firmament above us, that every eye may see it, that no mountains of earth may come between us and the heavenly vision; He has made it peculiarly bright, that every eye may be attracted to it. He has removed other stars from around it, that it may not be mistaken, but stand alone in its brilliance. It is to this star we point the eye of each sinner here; the Star of Bethlehem, the brightest in God’s firmament, the bright and morning star, the star which God has set there as His light to the world. He presents it to each one of you, that on recognizing it you may not walk in darkness, but have the light of life, and that, knowing it as it has been manifested, you may no longer stand in doubt as to your relationship with God, as to your personal acceptance. He so puts this righteousness at your disposal that you may come to Him in confidence, using it as if it were entirely your own.

IV. Fourthly, This righteousness is a righteousness “to which the law and the prophets bear witness.” By this expression, we understand the whole of the Old Testament. It is not something (he means to tell us) now come to light for the first time, not understood in the ages gone by; it is something which has been proclaimed from the beginning hitherto. To these oracles the eye of every saint, from Abel downward, has been directed; on this righteousness the feet of every saint from the beginning have stood; of this righteousness every prophet has spoken; to this righteousness every type has borne witness; and this righteousness every sacrifice has set forth. It is this Star which shone down upon the pilgrimage of Old Testament worthies, and in the light of which they walked. It is this Star which sheds light on every page of their history; it was to this Star that they, with one consent, age after age, pointed the eye of all around. They knew none but this; they cared for none but this; to them, as to those who believe now, Christ was “all and in all” On this righteousness they rested, in it they rejoiced. It is no new righteousness which we preach. It is no new foundation of which we tell. It is the old one, the well-proved one. It has been abundantly sufficient in past ages, and it has lost none of its efficiency now in these last days. It was enough for the saints in former ages, it is enough for us now. They who found salvation, ages and generations ago, found it here; and he who finds salvation now finds it also here.

V. Fifthly, This righteousness is a righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ: “Even the righteousness of God, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ, unto all, and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference.” He means to say by this expression, that it is a righteousness which comes to us by believing in Jesus Christ. It is not our faith that is our righteousness; it is not our act of believing that justifies. If your faith were your righteousness, then faith would be just reduced to the level of all other works, and would be itself a work. If it were our faith, our act of faith, that justified, then should we be justified by our own acts, by our own deeds. The expression, then “the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ,” means simply that it is a righteousness which passes over to us, and becomes available for us, by believing in Him whose righteousness it is; that is, by believing the Father’s testimony concerning Jesus Christ. It is by believing that we are identified with Him, so that His doing becomes our doing in the eye of God, and in the eye of the law; His suffering becomes our suffering; His fulfilling of the law becomes our fulfilling of the law; His obedience to the Father’s will is our obedience to the Father’s will. Such is the position into which we are brought by being made, in believing, one with Him. Thus “the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ,” is presented to us, that in believing on Him, He may become ours. Righteousness is here laid down at our feet. It is there, whether we receive it or not. It is there, whether we believe it or not; whether we reject it or receive it. Your receiving it does not create it; your receiving it does not complete it; it is all created, it is all completed, it is all free, it is all at our feet, whether we take it or thrust it away; and our condemnation hereafter, if we be lost, will be not that there was no righteousness, not that we refused to complete a righteousness which had been begun, but that we rejected the righteousness which was completed, and which was so presented to us by God himself. It is in believing, or, as the apostle expresses it, by faith in Jesus Christ, that this righteousness, with all its privileges, and with all its results, passes over to us. For in believing, what are we saying but just this: “I have no works to bring to God; I am a sinner, but I take this work of the Son of God, and I ask to be dealt with by God according to its value, and just as if I had done the work, and not He.” Or, it is just as if we were saying, “I have no righteousness, seeing I am wholly a sinner; but I take this righteousness of the Son of God, and I draw near, expecting to be treated by God, just as if I and not He were the righteous person. I cannot present any suffering to Him in payment of penalty; bat I take this suffering of the Son of God, and I claim to have it reckoned to me as payment of my penalty.” Thus it is, “Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to every one that believeth.”

VI. Sixthly, This righteousness is a righteousness for the unrighteous. It “is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” It is righteousness for the unrighteous. It is not righteousness for the good, but for the evil. It is not righteousness for the worthy, but for the unworthy. It is our unrighteousness that fits us for this righteousness. It is the evil that is in us that fits us for the excellency that is found in it. How foolish, then, to say as men, when convinced of sin, or when going back into former iniquity, are sometimes found saying, “I am too great a sinner to be for given.” Why, if you were not such a sinner, you would not need such a righteousness. It is the extent of your unrighteousness that fits you for a righteousness so infinite, so divine. If the righteousness were not the righteousness of God, if it were a human and not a divine righteousness, if finite and not infinite, your fear would be natural; but seeing it is divine not human, infinite, not finite, can anything be more foolish, more presumptuous, more profane, than to say, “My unrighteousness is too great for the righteousness of the Son of God”? This righteousness for the unrighteous is said by the apostle to be “unto all.” It is a righteousness which is like the sun in the heavens. It is one sun; yet it is enough for every one, it is free to every one. God works out a righteousness, and then sets it down on this fallen earth, that every one may avail himself of it. We are, therefore, not to say, Is this righteousness provided for this one or for that one, for many or for few? but there it is, there is the righteousness, go and take it. That is the gospel. Looking at the natural sun, do you ever think of asking, Is it for me, for this man or for that, the many or the few? You open your eye and enjoy its beams without asking any questions. Your making such inquiries would indicate a very unhealthy state of body; and so your asking such questions regarding God’s intention as proposed in this righteousness, indicates an unhealthy state of mind. To every sinner here, we preach the good news of this righteousness; a righteousness not only suitable and sufficient, but glorious and free; righteousness for the unrighteous; righteousness for the most unrighteous of the children of men.

Again, it is a righteousness which is “upon all them that believe”: It is “unto all”; but it is only “upon” them that believe. The moment that we believe through grace, we are accepted in the Beloved, redeemed from condemnation and from wrath. Till then the wrath of God abideth upon us. It is in believing that this righteousness is put upon us; and in believing what? In believing what God has testified concerning this righteousness, and concerning Him whose righteousness it is.

Again, the apostle affirms regarding this righteousness for the unrighteous, that “there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” There is no difference as to its fitness for the sinner, whatever his sin may be; and there is no difference as to the fitness of the sinner for the righteousness. There is this twofold fitness: the fitness of the righteousness for the sinner, and the fitness of the sinner for the righteousness. “There is no difference”; there is no man more fit than another; all are equally fit or equally unfit, equally qualified or equally unqualified, for “all have sinned”; and it is this that brings down all to the same level, and down to this level it is that the righteousness comes. For it is not a righteousness which has only come down to a certain level,—which has lighted upon earth, but only upon some of its highest peaks; it is a righteousness which has come down to the very lowest valleys, a righteousness which may be found out without climbing, and even beside our very dwellings. No one, then, can say, “I deserve it, therefore it is for me”; and no one, on the other hand, can say, “I do not deserve it, therefore it is not for me.” There is no difference, for “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Thus it suits the case of all; so that no one can put it away, and say, “It does not suit my case, but it may suit others.” Nay, friend, if you are not an unrighteous man it will not suit you, I grant; but if you are an unrighteous man it must suit you. There is no question as to the kind of your unrighteousness, the length of time, the amount or degree; there is no question about that, the simple question is, Are you an unrighteous man? Then it suits your case. And it is a righteousness near to each one of you; it is not afar off: it is not in heaven above, so that you have to climb to the seat of God to obtain it; and it is not down so low that you must dig to earth’s center to find it: it is near, it is at your very side; and if you reject it, it cannot be because of its distance. God has brought it near. He ells you it is near. “I bring near my righteousness.” God says that; and who are you that you should say, It is far off? Nay, more, it is free,—“Without money and without price.” There is no payment asked; no payment can be taken. The very idea of payment is insulting to the righteousness, and insulting to Him whose righteousness it is. Yet many seek to buy it,—not perhaps by their gold and silver, but by other things equally worthless. Some would buy it by their penances and fastings, some by their confessions; some would buy it by their repentance, some by their prayers, some by their self-mortification and privations, some by their fair lives and excellent deeds.

It is righteousness for the unrighteous that we proclaim, the righteousness of God, a righteousness which has come down from heaven to earth on very purpose that it may be presented to you. It is God’s wish that you should take it. Do you refuse it? He hinders not. Where then lies the hindrance? In you, not in Him. The refusal will not be on His part; it must be on yours; and if you perish, you perish, not because He would not be reconciled to you, but because you would not be reconciled to Him; not because there was not a provided righteousness, but because you rejected it; not because there was not sufficient love in God to give you that righteousness, but because you willfully put away from you both the righteousness and the love.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

—Romans 5:15

I have lately been stuck on Romans 5:15–21, particularly the “much more” statements in 15, 17, and 20.

If there was so much power and efficacy, as it seems there was, in the sin of a man, who was of the earth, earthy, to condemn us, much more are there power and efficacy in the righteousness and grace of Christ, who is the Lord from heaven, to justify and save us. The one man that saves us is Jesus Christ. Surely Adam could not propagate so strong a poison but Jesus Christ could propagate as strong an antidote, and much stronger.

—Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (Hendrickson, 1991), 6:323.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

The Voice from Galilee.
Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down
Thy head upon my breast.
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary, and worn, and sad;
I found in Him a resting-place,
And He has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Behold, I freely give
The living water: thirsty one,
Stoop down, and drink, and live.
I came to Jesus and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
I am this dark world’s light,
Look unto me, thy morn shall rise,
And all thy day be bright.
I looked to Jesus, and I found
In Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that light of life I’ll walk,
Till travelling days are done.

—Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope, First Series (James Nisbet & Co., 1878).

Bonar

Kingsfold

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness

—Romans 4:3–5

Justification by faith is a very old doctrine,—one of the oldest dogmas on record. It is as old as Abraham; as old as Abel. The patriarchs knew it well, and lived thereby. It was as believing men that they were justified. The old pagans had not so much as a glimpse of this. It required a divine revelation to communicate even the idea or possibility of it, much more the actual thing.

The apostle goes back to Abraham for his illustration of this free justification, and reminds us that his faith was counted for righteousness, that is, his believing was reckoned instead of his working, in the great question of acceptance. He took God at His word, and in thus honouring Him, “pleased God.” Hence the apostle thus strongly puts the matter,—“To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

I. Who justifies? “It is God that justifieth.” The Judge, the Lawgiver, is the Justifier. Self-justification is as useless as it is impossible. To acquit myself is of no avail, unless the law and the lawgiver do the same. I must have my sentence of acquittal or justification from God Himself. It is only His verdict that can satisfy me now, or can avail me in the day of the great reckoning. “Not guilty” from my own hips or from man’s lips, will profit nothing; “not guilty” from His lips is altogether sufficient; I need no more to set my soul at rest, and to give me peace of conscience, tranquility of soul.

II. What sort of justification does He give? Man’s ideas of justification are vague and low; we must recognize God’s thoughts upon the question. His justification is,—

(1.) Righteous. The adjustment of the question between us and God is a righteous adjustment. Its basis is righteousness. Nothing but this would satisfy God or ourselves, or make us feel safe in accepting it in our dealings with a holy God. This righteousness is secured by the full payment of the penalty by a surety or substitute. He does what we should have done; He suffers what we should have suffered; He lives our life, He dies our death, He descends to our grave. Thus He exhausts the penalty, and so makes justification a righteous thing; and our justification is that of men who have suffered the law’s full penalty for our sins; our pardon is that of men who, in the person of their substitute, have undergone all that they deserved eternally to undergo. The Just One suffering for the unjust makes the justification of the unjust a just and righteous thing.

(2.) Complete. It extends to our whole persons; to our whole lives; to every sin committed by us. The whole man is justified. It is no half-pardon, no semi-acceptance, that we receive, but something complete and divine; perfect as God can make it; so perfect as to satisfy conscience here, and to stand the test of the judgment seat hereafter. Nothing in us or about us that goes to make up our character as sinners, is left unjustified.

(3.) Irreversible. No second verdict can alter our legal position. God is not a man that He should lie. Pardoned once, then pardoned forever. “Who is he that condemneth?” “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”

(4.) Divine. It is a justification worthy of God; a justification which shall place the justified on a far higher level than the first Adam stood upon; a justification which can only be likened to that of the Son of God Himself when He rose from the dead, being “justified in the Spirit” (1 Timothy 3:16).

III. For whom is it? For the ungodly. Yes; for such alone. Righteousness for the unrighteous is that which the Righteous One came to bring. In this matter of pardon and acceptance, the principle is not, “To him that hath shall more be given, but to him that hath nothing shall all be given. It is not partial or incipient godliness that attracts this justification to an individual. The only fitness or qualification is our need, our ungodliness, our unrighteousness, total and complete, without one particle of goodness or deservingness. It was for the ungodly that Christ died. It was for the ungodly that this righteousness was provided; and he who thinks to have it on any other footing save that of simple need or in any other character save that of unrighteousness or ungodliness, cannot possibly obtain it. The “good news” which we bring concerning this righteousness is that it is for the ungodly,—for the ungodliest; and he who would qualify or explain away that word ungodly, subverts and denies the whole gospel of the grace of God.

IV. How we get it. By believing. In accepting God’s testimony to the righteousness,—in crediting His word concerning this justification,—we are justified at once. The righteousness becomes ours; and God treats us henceforth as men who are righteous, as men who, on account of the righteousness which has thus become theirs, are entitled to be dealt with as righteous, out and out. Of Abraham it is said, “His faith was counted for righteousness”; that is, God counted this believing man as one who had done all righteousness, just because he was a believing man. Not that his act or acts of faith were substituted as equivalent to work, but his believing brought him into the possession of all that working could have done. Thus, in believing, we get the righteousness. Our believing accomplishes for us all that our working could have done. The apostle’s words are very bold, and the comparison between the working and believing which they embody, brings out the great distinction between man’s thoughts and God’s, man’s ways and God’s, “To him that worketh not, but believeth.” We are so apt to mix up the two together, the believing and the working, the believing and the feeling, that it is needful to have a strong statement like this thoroughly to clear up our thoughts, and to prevent confusion. The expression here, “believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly,” is another way of expressing the truth, “believing in the Lord Jesus Christ”; for it points us to God, who laid our sins upon His Son, that by this bearing of them, in the person of a divine surety, God might be just, and the Justifier of him who believes.

Come and be justified, is His message to the sinner. Credit my testimony, and be freely pardoned! For our gospel is not, “Do this” or “that,” but, Come, reap the fruits of what another has done. Come, and, without working, or waiting, or praying, or feeling, enter into the complete justification of him who believeth!

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Hymn LVIII.
O Lord, I will praise thee! Isaiah xii.
William Cowper (1731–1800)

I will praise thee every day
Now thine anger’s turned away!
Comfortable thoughts arise
From the bleeding sacrifice.

Here in the fair gospel field,
Wells of free salvation yield
Streams of life, a plenteous store,
And my soul shall thirst no more.

Jesus is become at length
My salvation and my strength;
And his praises shall prolong,
While I live, my pleasant song.

Praise ye, then, his glorious name,
Publish his exalted fame!
Still his worth your praise exceeds,
Excellent are all his deeds.

Raise again the joyful sound,
Let the nations roll it round!
Zion shout, for this is he,
God the Savior dwells in thee.

—Olney Hymns. Book I: On select Passages of Scripture.

6 just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

7

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven,

And whose sins have been covered.

8

“Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”

—Romans 4

The apostle asks, How was Abraham justified? He answers, “By believing.” Then he asks, How was David justified? And he answers, “By believing.” In both cases by the “righteousness of God”; a righteousness “without works”; a righteousness “without law” and yet a righteousness witnessed by the law and the prophets; a righteousness in accordance with all true law and government; a righteousness for the unrighteous.

Again, the apostle raises the question, What makes a blessed man? And he refers to David’s announcement respecting blessedness, and its cause or root. The blessed man is the man to whom “God imputeth righteousness without works.” To a sinner this is absolutely essential; it is a sine qua non, indispensable. There can be no blessedness in any other way. After the imputation has taken place, there are innumerable sources of blessedness, all pouring in their joy and peace; but this is the beginning. No blessedness without this divine reckoning of righteousness; but with this a man’s blessedness commences. Heaven is begun within him, the heaven that David tasted, and which he so often speaks of: “in His favor is life.” (Psalm 3:5.)

There is, then, blessedness on earth, even to a sinner,—true blessedness,—that which God calls by that name. In spite of weariness, sorrow, conflict, cares, fears, burdens, there is such a thing as blessedness. And this blessedness God freely presents to each unblessed, sorrowful, burdened son of Adam, without money and without price.

The apostle, in quoting the words of David, thus prefaces and interprets them: “David describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.” Righteousness without works was that which David enjoyed. He obtained righteousness without working for it at all; righteousness by simply taking it from another, and using it as if it were his own.

We must have a righteousness, else we cannot stand before God; we cannot have a religion. God must deal with us, and we must deal with God, on the footing of righteousness; not simply of grace; for He is the righteous as well as the gracious God. When we go to Him we must do so with a righteousness in our hand, either our own or another’s. Our transactions with God must all be of this nature. They must be righteous transactions; dealings between a righteous God and men who are, at the same moment, in His eye, both righteous and unrighteous, and therefore needing both grace and righteousness. A personal righteousness on our part is an impossibility. We cannot work for it; and we cannot get it by working. In going to God we must begin, not encl with righteousness; so that we must have it before we can please God or do any good thing; in other words, it must be free, and it must come to us at once, and it must satisfy both God and our own conscience. Only the righteousness of another can do this; “righteousness without works”; righteousness which does not depend on our doing, or feeling, or praying, or repenting, but which comes to us at once from God, as the root and fountainhead of all working, and goodness, and holiness on our part. The prodigal did not work for the “best robe,” but got it all ready-made from his father’s hands; Joseph did not work for his coat of many colors, but received it as the gift of his father’s love; Adam did not work for the skins with which the Lord God clothed him: so is it with the sinner in his approaches to God, and in God’s approaches to him. “Righteousness without works” is given him; nay, put upon him as a raiment, a divine raiment, to fit him for drawing near to God.

There are three things noted here as making up this blessedness, and indispensable to its existence:

I. Iniquities are forgiven. It is “transgression” in the original Psalm. This is one kind of sin, and generally denotes the worst. There is then “transgression” or “iniquity”; but it is forgiven (or “borne,” as the word means); for there is forgiveness with God, that He may be feared; a complete, free, divine forgiveness; such as God delights to give, and the sinner to receive. “He forgiveth all our iniquities”; He forgives without reserve, or stint, or uncertainty. He removes our iniquities from us as far as east is from the west. He retains not one; He blots out all.

II. Sins are covered. There is, and there has been, sin; but it is no longer visible; it is buried; it is covered; it is put out of sight, as if God himself no longer saw it. It is God who covers, not man; He covers by means of the blood of atonement; He covers by burying it in the grave of Christ. Thus our sins are completely covered, hidden, forgiven. They are first “borne,” and then “buried.” Could any words more completely express forgiveness?

III. Sin is not imputed. There are three words in this passage expressive of sin, as in God’s first full announcement of Himself as the great forgiver (Exodus 34:6.); transgression, iniquity, sin; meaning every kind and form of sin. And there are three words used in reference to the putting away of sin,—forgiving (bearing), covering, not imputing. This last,—the non-imputation,—is said specially to be Jehovah’s doing. This non-imputation is without works; it is free; it is divine; it is perfect; it is sure; it comes as the consequence of believing.

Thus there are three foundation stones laid for the sinner’s blessedness; each of them ample; all of them together fully sufficient. On these he must rest. Without these he can have no joy. His belief of God’s testimony to these is that which connects him with this threefold foundation, and with the blessedness. He believes, and becomes a blessed man. The grace or free love of God, contained in these three things, is that which pours blessedness into his soul.

The Psalmist adds, and “in whose spirit there is no guile.” Forgiveness makes him a guileless man; it takes away all temptation to speak or act untruly and deceitfully with God, or with man, or with himself. He becomes an Israelite indeed. Pardon has made him such. Being fully forgiven, he has no longer any motive to conceal the very worst of himself. God’s forgiveness frank and ample has superseded the necessity of any palliation or excuse; has delivered him from the temptation to make the best of his case and of himself. He thinks, feels, acts, speaks honestly. He confesses sin, and he finds God faithful and just to forgive his sins.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Originally posted at The Calvinist Gadfly.

Q. 30. Does God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?

A. God does not leave all men to perish in the estate of sin and misery,into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called the covenant of works; but of his mere love and mercy delivers his elect out of it, and brings them into an estate of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the covenant of grace.

But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Romans 5:15–21

In the previous verses (Romans 5:12–14), Question 22 was answered in the affirmative: all mankind fell with Adam in the first transgression. We were left hopelessly fallen, waiting for Question 30 to pick us up out of our “estate of sin and misery.” Verses 12–14 connected us to Adam. Verses 15–21 connect us to Christ, exploring the one man/one act analogy of Adam and Christ.

But the free gift is not like the transgression. . . . The free gift — “having now been justified by His blood” — is like the transgression — through which “death spread to all men” — in only one way: it came through one man. In effect, it is the polar opposite. Through Adam’s sin, “the many died”; through the free gift, grace was poured out to many, and not in equal proportions to the transgression, but abounding “much more.” Calvin wrote,

It may indeed be justly inferred, that since the fall of Adam had such an effect as to produce the ruin of many, much more efficacious is the grace of God to the benefit of many; inasmuch as it is admitted, that Christ is much more powerful to save, than Adam was to destroy.

—John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries Volume XIX, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans (Baker Books, 2009), 206.

The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned . . . The condemnation of Adam's sin is unlike grace in that it rose from one transgression, whereas, for those who believe, grace rises from every transgression, resulting in justification. We see two great truths in these verses: first, that God hates sin so much that one was enough to damn all of humanity; second, God loves mankind so much that he offers forgiveness to all men for all sins.

For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one . . . Now we have another of these “as that, so this, only moreso” statements. As the one sin of one man brought the reign of death over all men, “much more” will the elect (“those who receive the abundance of grace”) reign in life through Christ. Why “much more”? I believe Calvin’s comments (above) apply, but I also tend to think in terms of intent and efficacy. If the unthinking act of a finite man produced these unintended consequences, how much more efficacious is the intentional corrective act of an infinite God? If Adam stumbled into disaster, God’s calculated response — planned well in advance — is much more certain. In fact, “much more” is an understatement.

So then as through one transgression . . . through one act of righteousness . . . through the one man’s disobedience . . . through the obedience of the One . . . Verses 18–19 set Adam and Christ in opposite categories: obedient, and disobedient. The essence of Adam’s sin is that he was disobedient. The necessary antidote was an act of supreme obedience. We, as Adam’s heirs, are unrighteous, disobedient. Those who are in Christ are, by virtue of his obedience, declared righteous and justified before God. His obedience is our obedience.

. . . where sin increased, grace abounded all the more . . . Those whom God has delivered out of their “estate of sin and misery . . . into an estate of salvation” are not merely sinners, but great sinners. We have known the Law, and through it have known God, and have yet fallen short of his holiness. Our sin, in the light of the Law, has increased. But, praise God, as sin increased, grace abounded. Just as sin reigns in death — those who are spiritually dead are slaves to sin — grace reigns “through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And we cannot overemphasize the point that the righteousness through which grace reigns is not our own, but Christ’s.

If you are in Christ, you are no longer in “an estate of sin and misery.” Sin does not reign in you. Therefore, you can take your rest in Christ, through whose righteousness you have received abundant grace. Grace rules.

Get your own copy of The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms here.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Tune Me, O Lord
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

Tune me, O Lord, into one harmony
With Thee, one full responsive vibrant chord;
Unto Thy praise all love and melody,
Tune me, O Lord.

Thus need I flee nor death, nor fire, nor sword.
A little while these be, then cease to be,
And sent by Thee not these should be abhorred.

Devil and world, gird me with strength,
To flee the flesh, and arm me with Thy word:
As Thy Heart is to my heart, unto Thee
Tune me, O Lord.

—Christina Rossetti, Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).

through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.

—Romans 5:2

Let us note here—(1) The grace; (2) The introduction into it; (3) The abiding, or standing; (4) The rejoicing.

I. The grace.—It is here called “this grace,”—a well known, most suitable, and sufficient grace, or free love; the free love of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This is “the true grace of God”; free love in the heart of God to the ungodly, to the unloving and unloveable. This grace, or free love, is absolute and unconditional; considering not our deservings or qualifications, but simply our need. It looks at us not as good, but as evil; not as sensible, but insensible; not as penitent, but impenitent; not as good in any sense or degree, but as wholly evil. It is not created or awakened by our amendments, or good feelings, or love, or prayers, or regeneration. It regards us simply as sinners, ungodly, needing God’s favor and help. It is this free love that begins, carries on, and consummates a sinner’s deliverance. The knowledge of this divine free love is life eternal. Out of this fountain, ever full and flowing, there comes to us pardon, and joy, and health, and consolation, and light. He that knows that free love, knows that which saves him, and draws him into happy fellowship with God. He that knows it not, is still afar off; the child of darkness, and the worshipper of an unknown God. We can neither be happy nor holy till we know it. It is the good news of God’s free love that we preach. This is “the ministry of the reconciliation”; this is our mission and commission, “to testify the gospel of the grace of God,” and to tell that it is “by his mercy that he saves us”; to speak of “the exceeding riches of the grace of God.”

II. The access, or introduction.—We do not create or awaken this free love by any goodness or qualification of our own. It exists independent of these. Nor did Christ, by His coming and death, create that love. This love existed before; it was this that sent Christ. “God so loved the world, that He gave his Son.” Yet, without Christ, this love could never have reached us. It would have been a distant and inaccessible well, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. It is through Him that this free love has found its way to us. He brings it to us, and us to it. He gives access, and entrance, and introduction; for the word implies all these, and is used elsewhere to signify the bringing or introducing one person to another (Luke 9:41; Acts 16:20); and is employed not simply in reference to the grace of God, but to God himself (1 Peter 3:18; Ephesians 2:18, 3:12).

Our outward or objective Introducer and introduction is Christ himself; our inward or subjective introduction and introducer is faith. Jesus brings us to time Father and the Father’s grace, but He does so by producing faith in us. Without, or apart from Christ, the grace cannot come to us; and without faith, Christ and we are kept at a distance from each other. God has given us His true testimony, both as to His grace and as to His Son; and we, in believing that testimony, become connected with both. The grace is deposited in Christ for us; and we, in coming to Him, get the grace that is in Him. The grace that is in Him, He has received for men, even for the rebellious; and this was the grace which He manifested when here on earth, both in his words and deeds. He was the gracious One, and, as such, the representative of the Father. We go to Him to get His own and the Father’s grace, the free love of Godhead.

III. The standing, or abiding.—In this grace, or free love, we have stood since we were introduced into it; and in it we are standing, and shall stand. “We stand in it!” This is a believing man’s true position. He takes his stand on the free love of God. This raises him up and holds him up; keeps him from fainting, or falling, or sliding. This free love is to him—(1) abiding peace, (2) abiding strength, (3) abiding security. This free love is to him—(1) sunshine, (2) rain, (3) food, (4) water, (5) medicine, (6) wine. At this well he stands and drinks, in this sun he basks, to this storehouse he comes for everything. Have we used this free love as we ought? Are we using it constantly? Do we use it for strengthening our faith, for quickening our daily life, for increasing our holiness, for dispelling our doubts, for ministering consolation? In the constant recognition of this love, there is provision for a close walk with God, and for a useful, zealous life. Are we thus employing it? Are we using it pure and undiluted; love—true, free, unmingled, unmerited love? Or are we diluting it,—polluting it, by mingling something of our own with it; making it less pure, and heavenly, and generous ; less absolutely, and unconditionally, and entirely free? Let us remember how much our steadfastness and progress depend on our constant recognizing of, and living on, this free love. Apart from it, all is weakness, bondage, darkness, and instability. O free love of God, what a fountain of life and strength thou art to the weary, helpless sinner!

IV. The rejoicing.—This grace is not merely stability for us, but joy, and hope, and glory. Standing in this grace, we are filled with joy. This joy comes not merely from the past and present, but from the future; not merely from the knowledge that we are beloved of God, but from the knowledge of what that love is to do for us hereafter. We rejoice because our future is filled with hope,—the hope of the glory of God. Joy comes, then, from hope; hope from the God of love; hope sure and steadfast; hope that maketh not ashamed; everlasting hope. Glory is ours in prospect,—the glory of God; and so great is it, that we reckon that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed,—the “exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” It is the glory of the new heavens and earth, the glory of resurrection, the glory of the kingdom, the very glory of Christ. And it is all ours, simply as those who have known and believed this free love of God. Hence the apostle’s prayer, “The God of (the) hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” Take these lessons:

1. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.—It is on this we plant our feet; it is this that makes us strong. This love is our strength.

2. Rejoice in the Lord.—Ours should be a full and constant gladness; for, both before and behind, we are compassed about with that which gladdens.

3. Abound in hope.—It is bright, blessed, and glorious. It is the hope of reigning with Christ. It will sustain and sanctify. It will animate and cheer. Thus do we glorify the God of hope.

4. Realize the glory. Keep the eye steadfastly fixed upon it, till its brightness fills our whole being.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Confession and Petition

Holy Lord,

I have sinned times without number,
and been guilty of pride and unbelief,
of failure to find thy mind in thy Word,
of neglect to seek thee in my daily life.

My transgressions and short-comings
present me with a list of accusations,

But I bless thee that they will not stand against me,
for all have been laid on Christ.

Go on to subdue my corruptions,
and grant me grace to live above them.

Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings
of the mind bring my spirit into subjection,
but do thou rule over me in liberty and power.

I thank thee that many of my prayers
have been refused —
I have asked amiss and do not have,
I have prayed from lusts and been rejected,
I have longed for Egypt and been given a
wilderness.

Go on with thy patient work,
answering ‘no’ to my wrongful prayers,
and fitting me to accept it.

Purge me from every false desire,
every base aspiration,
everything contrary to thy rule.

I thank thee for thy wisdom and thy love,
for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject,
for sometimes putting me into the furnace
to refine my gold and remove my dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin.

If thou shouldst give me choice to live
in pleasure and keep my sins,
or to have them burnt away with trial,
give me sanctified affliction.

Deliver me from every evil habit,
every accretion of former sins,
everything that dims the brightness
of thy grace in me,

Everything that prevents me taking delight
in thee.

Then I shall bless thee, God of Jeshurun,
for helping me to be upright.

—The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).

2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;

—Romans 5:2–4

How simply does the apostle put the “good news” in the conclusion of the previous chapter! “It was not written for his (Abraham’s) 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 because we had sinned, and was raised because we were justified.” Then in the fifth chapter he thus continues,—”Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom we have access (introduction) by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we even glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience (δοχιμή, approval after trial,—approval by God; perhaps here “a sense of approval”), and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed (will not disappoint), because the love of God is shed abroad (poured out of one vessel into another) in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.”

Thus, then, all true religion begins with our being justified; this justification is immediate,—by believing; then follows inseparably, peace with God; and this peace is through Jesus Christ, who is our peace, and who has made peace by the blood of His cross. This Jesus who has effected the peace has brought us at the same time into a state of favor, and placed us on a new footing, namely, of grace or free love, so that all our intercourse and transactions with God henceforth proceed on this new footing; God deals with us in free love, and we count on being dealt with at all times in free love; we expect nothing save from free love, and from it we expect everything. This fountain of God’s free love, thus opened for us, and to which, we are brought by Jesus Christ, is all we need for the fullest supply of our innumerable wants. Let us give all credit to the divine testimony concerning it; and act upon it continually; so shall we be kept in peace, and strength, and liberty.

But let us look at the second verse a little more closely.

The two things which the apostle brings before us in connection with our justified condition, are the grace and the glory. Let us take up these two subjects.

I. The grace. This means, of course, the state of favor with God; as when we read, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” It is that state in which we are dealt with by God in free love, and in free love alone; that state in which not law but free love regulates everything, gives everything; so that keeping this in mind, we may live, and act, and pray as those who are entitled to feel themselves absolutely sure of everything that free love can bestow. The apostle refers to two things in our connection with this state, our introduction or access into it, and our abiding in it.

(1.) Access or introduction. It is Christ that introduces us into it, places us in it,—Christ himself; for “through Him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” Christ is the revealer of the Father, the embodiment of the Father’s free love. Christ takes us by the hand, and leads us in to the Father’s presence; and thus led in by Him, we find there nothing but grace, favor, love. There is no other Introducer but He; there is no other introduction or recommendation but His blood. He leads us in, saying, Father, here is one who is willing to be indebted to me for everything, to my blood for cleansing, to my righteousness for covering, to my merit for acceptance, receive him graciously, love him freely. Thus by Christ we are introduced into the favor of God.

(2.) Abiding in it. It is a state of permanence, unchanging permanence. It is not free love today and law tomorrow, but free love perpetually henceforth; we are not under the law but under grace; where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded. We are not in favor one hour, and out of favor the next, according to our frames; but always in favor, through Him who has introduced us into a state, out of which we can never be cast. There may be much inconsistency, much conscious evil, much that is in itself fitted to separate us from God, or draw His frown upon us; but we are now in a state of favor,—and God deals with us now only in free love. This free love faith realizes; keeping us ever under a sense of it, “rooted and grounded in love.” Out of the happy consciousness of this, nothing but unbelief can drive us or keep us. Let us, then, know our privilege as believing men, and stand in this free love; let “us be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” It is often hard so to abide; to realize God’s free love in the midst of much conscious evil; but that is the condition of every one who has believed in Jesus; and on this free love he ever falls back when Satan would prompt him to despond, or lead him to self-righteousness. The remembrance of this free love will alone keep him in perfect peace. Nothing else will avail.

II. The glory. It is “the glory of God”; not the essential glory of the divine character, but the glory conferred on us by God; the glory of His kingdom; the glory of His glorious heaven; the glory of resurrection, when that which is sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory; the glory of the inheritance of the saints in light.

Connected with this glory there is first joy, and then hope.

(1.) Joy. The word is more properly to triumph, or boast, or exult. It is the expression of the soul’s exuberant fullness at the tidings of such a glory. It is joy more than sufficient to counterbalance all earthly sorrows, as well as to eclipse all earthly joys. We glory in the glory. We triumph every time we think of what God has promised to us, and will ere long bring to pass.

(2.) Hope. This glory is expressly given us as a hope, as something for hope to feed upon; an object large enough and bright enough to gladden the hoping eye, and fill the hoping soul. It is preeminently the thing hoped for, the “blessed hope.” We are men of hope. We are saved by hope. We love by hope. We are comforted by hope. We are sustained and sanctified by hope. It is a hope that maketh not ashamed. It will not fail nor disappoint. It will, when realized, prove itself to be worthy of the joy which it gave us here; worthy of that God who prepared it for us, of that Christ who bought it for us.

The root of all this is faith,—faith beginning at the cross and stretching forward to the throne; faith which brings us into the possession of the divine favor, and keeps us in perfect peace, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.

Let us live the lives of believing men; at peace with God; rooted and grounded in love; free, happy, earnest, self-denied; never losing hold of the free love of God, and never losing sight of the glory to be revealed; walking not only in the love of God, but in the law of God, which is holy, and just, and good, keeping our eye continually on the “statutes,” and “judgments,” and “testimonies,” and “commandments” of the Lord our God, knowing that “great peace have they that love this law,” and that it is to this that we are called,—”that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Hymn 62. (c. m.)
Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, worshipped by all the creation. Rev. v. 11–13.

Come, let us join with cheerful songs
With angels round the throne;
Ten thousand thousand are their tongues,
But all their joys are one.

“Worthy the Lamb that died,” they cry,
“To be exalted thus:”
“Worthy the Lamb,” our lips reply,
“For he was slain for us.”

Jesus is worthy to receive
Honor and power divine;
And blessings more than we can give,
Be, Lord, for ever thine.

Let all that dwell above the sky,
And air, and earth, and seas,
Conspire to lift thy glories high,
And speak thine endless praise.

The whole creation join in one,
To bless the sacred name
Of him that sits upon the throne,
And to adore the Lamb.

—from The Psalms & Hymns of Isaac Watts. Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book I: Collected from the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 1997).

10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

—Romans 5

There are four distinct facts or events given us here, on which the argument of the passage builds itself. Two of these have reference to the history of the sinner, and two of them to tile history of the sinner’s deliverer. The first two are, man’s enmity and man’s reconciliation; the last two are, the Saviour’s death and the Saviour’s life. Out of these four facts the apostle’s argument is constructed—an argument as profound as it is simple, as convincing as it is natural. It is apparently but one argument, and yet it divides itself very easily into three quite separate parts, rising out of these two classes of facts. The first argument is—“If God did so much for us when enemies, what will He do for us when friends?” The second is—“If Christ’s death has done so much for us, what will His life do?” The third argument is—“If Christ’s death did so much for us when enemies, what will his life do for us when friends?”

Such is the argument of our text,—threefold in its construction, and yet each part not merely linked to the other, but most naturally and simply rising out of the other, so that a person in possession of the facts could not help following time steps of his reasoning, and acquiescing in his triumphant conclusions. But before proceeding to consider these, there is a truth which may be brought out here, and kept in mind as we pass along, being implied in and illustrative of time argument. It is this— “If God’s thoughts were gracious before sending His Son, they cannot be supposed to be less ‘so after He has been sent.” Now, we know that His thoughts were thoughts of peace and grace from all eternity. Had they not been so, He never would have sent His Son. And we know that it is written: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son;” “God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while ye were yet sinners, Christ died for us;” “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” There having been in His infinite bosom this exceeding love before He gave His Son, it is wholly incredible that He should be less gracious now, less compassionate, less loving, less willing to bestow all needed gifts. For (1) that gift did not exhaust His love. It did not empty the heart of God, nor dry up the fountain of His grace. God’s love is not like man’s love, ebbing and flowing, bursting forth and then subsiding.’ No. The gift, though unspeakable, was not the exhaustion but the manifestation of the love, demonstrating it to be an infinite love, and shewing the infinite lengths to which it is willing to go. So far from having made God unwilling to do more for us, it has proved that there are no limits to His willingness to do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. (2.) That gift has not thrown any hindrance in the way of God’s love. It is not now a more difficult thing for God to love us; nay, if we can say so, it is easier than ever. All hindrances have now melted away. That gift which displayed the love, contained in it provision for the removal of all barriers that stood in its way. There are now no breaks nor barriers to stay its course. It is at liberty to roll on unhindered in its amplest fullness. It is now a righteous thing in God to love, to pardon, and to bless. And will He love less now that there exist no longer any obstacles to check the course of love? Will He love less when His love is no longer pent up, but has free course; when He is free to love; nay, to give vent to it, even to the uttermost;—nay, when in doing so, He magnifies His law, glorifies Himself, and puts honour on His Son? Instead, then, of God’s loving us less, we should be led to conclude, that, if that were possible, He must love us immeasurably more!

Having thus briefly noticed this important truth, we now pass on to consider time three special heads of argument.

1. If God did so much for us when enemies, what will he do, or rather, what will He not do, for us now that we are friends? He is speaking, of course, in the name of those who have entered into reconciliation over time blood of the great sacrifice—who, in believing, have found peace with God, and have exchanged enmity for friendship, hatred for love. Speaking in their name, he reasons “If, when we were enemies, He reconciled us to Himself, much more now, when reconciled, will He bless us. Our enmity did not hinder His blessing us, much less surely will our reconciliation. Our enmity, great as it was, did not hinder His bestowing such an unspeakable gift; what is there, then, within the whole circle of the universe, which we may not count upon, now that that enmity has been removed, and we have entered into eternal friendship with Him? Nothing was too costly for us when we were enemies; can anything be too costly now that we are friends. The great difficulty of our enmity being surmounted, what is there that remains to hinder the fullest outflow of His hove? Nay, what is there that will not tend to draw out that love in larger and larger measures?”

He loved and blessed us when enemies; will He not much more love us when friends? He loved us when we hated Him; will He not love us more when we return His love? He loved us when aliens, strangers, prodigals; will He not love us more when we have become sons, and, as sons, have returned to the parental home, and have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry “Abba, Father”? He loved us when unrighteous,—when we had not even so much as a creature’s righteousness,—will He not love us unspeakably more when we stand before Him in righteousness, and that the righteousness of His only-begotten Son? He loved us when unholy; will He not love us now when His Spirit has taken old timings away, and made all things new? He loved us when there dwelt in us only the spirit of the world, nay, the very god of this world himself; will He not love us when His own Spirit dwells in us, making us temples of the living God? He loved us when we were heirs of wrath; will He not love and bless us more when we are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ?

There may be said to be three stages in this love, at each of which it rises and increases:—First, He loved us when enemies. Secondly, He loves us more when friends, even in this imperfect state of still-remaining sin. Thirdly, He will love us yet more when imperfection has been shaken off, and we are presented without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. The first stage of this love is, when we were heirs of perdition; the second is, when we become heirs of the kingdom; the third is, when we actually get possession of the kingdom, and are seated with Christ upon His throne.

Here, then, is love in which we may assuredly triumph. It was love which expressed itself by an infinite gift. It did so when we were afar off when we were enemies; what expression, then, will it give, or rather, what expression will it not give to itself now when we have been brought nigh to God, and have entered into covenant with Him? Nay, more, what a portion must be ours hereafter, what a sum of blessedness, what an exceeding and eternal weight of glory! Especially when, in giving vent to His love to us, He is getting vent to His love towards His Son; when, in honouring and glorifying us, He is honouring and glorifying His Son! Being, then, justified by faith, not only have we peace with God, not only have we access into this grace wherein we stand, but we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We reason thus: If God has lavished on us such a love when we knew Him not, what will He not do for us now that we know Him? If He is loving us and blessing us here, oh! will He not love us and bless us in the day when we take possession of the provided inheritance?

II. If Christ’s death did so much for us, what will not His life do? If a dying Saviour did so much for us, what will not a living Saviour be able to do?

The expression “saved” used here, denotes the whole blessing which God has in store for us—complete deliverance in every sense of that word—a complete undoing of our lost estate—the full possession of every blessing. Salvation, in God’s sense of it, takes in the very widest compass of blessing, from the forgiveness of the first sin to the possession of the eternal glory. Of this salvation, reconciliation was the commencement. In being brought nigh to God through the blood of the cross, our salvation began. Its consummation is, when Jesus comes the second time without sin unto salvation.

The apostle’s argument rests on the fact of the existence of these two opposite states of being—the two opposite extremities of being, death and life. Death is the lowest pitch of helplessness, lower even than the feebleness of infancy. It is the extremity of weakness. It is the utter cessation of all strength. Life is the opposite of this. It is the full possession of being, with all its faculties and powers. It is the guarantee for the forth putting of all the vigor and strength which belongs to the individual in whom it dwells. And it is thus that the apostle reasons: If Christ in His lowest state of weakness accomplished such marvels for us, what will He not be able to do for us now that He is in the full exercise of His almighty strength? If when reduced to the very extremity of helplessness, He did so much for us, what will He not do for us now when He can say, All power is given to me in heaven and in earth? If, when going down into the tomb, He yet wrought such achievements for us, what will He not do when rising from the tomb, nay, ascending on high? If when under the power of His enemies, and nailed in helpless agony on the tree, He yet prevailed in our behalf how will He not prevail now that He has triumphed over all? If when made a little lower than the angels, He did so much for us, what will He not do when raised far above principalities and powers, and every name that is named? If, when subjected to the dominion of him who had the power of death, He yet conquered for us, and won such glorious spoils, what will He not do now when He has led captivity captive, and completed His mighty victory? If the cross and the tomb have done so much for us, what will not the throne secure?

How perfect the reasoning! How blessed the conclusion! Resting on such an argument, we may stand unshaken and unruffled. Using this as our shield, what fiery darts of the wicked one may we not repel? And shall we not ply it to the utmost in dispelling our darkness, in banishing our doubts, in making us thoroughly ashamed of our fears? Using it as time apostle does, and reasoning with ourselves—“If a dying Saviour did so much for us, what will not a living Saviour do?” let us say, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? still trust in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”

III. If Christ’s death did so much for us when enemies, what will not His life do for us when friends? In other words, If a dying Saviour did so much for us when enemies, what will not a living Saviour do for us when friends? This is the conjunction of the two previous conclusions. It completes the whole argument by thus putting the two into one. It is a double argument; double in its structure, and double in its strength. It is an argument of resistless power, making us feel the perfect and absolute security which we have for everything included in that word salvation. If enemies have tasted such love, and received such blessings, at the hands of a dying Saviour, what may not friends receive at the hands of Him who is not only alive, but liveth for evermore? If, in the extremity of His weakness, and in the extremity of our alienation, such wonders were wrought for us—in spite of that weakness on His part, and that alienation on ours—what may we not expect now that He is invested with the perfection of all power, and when we have not simply been reconciled, but have been made friends and sons, nay, taken to His bosom as His chosen bride? If a father, in the midst of poverty and weakness, will do much for a prodigal child, what will he not, in the day of his riches, and power, and honour, do for a reconciled son?

Here, then, are two truths which, in assuring us of pardon, assure us of everything. “Jesus died, and Jesus liveth,”—these are the truths which contain everything for us. “Jesus died!”—that contains everything that we need for reconciliation and peace: “Jesus liveth!”—that contains everything pertaining to the promised inheritance. In knowing the former, I enter into friendship with God; in knowing the latter, I get hold of a security for all heavenly blessing, which takes away the possibility of a suspicion arising in my soul, even in my most troubled hours, as to my joy and glory for eternity. “Jesus died—Jesus liveth!” The simple knowledge of these simple truths is salvation, forgiveness, peace, eternal life. All that the death and life of Christ combined can accomplish is ours! All that can come forth from His grave, or down from His throne,— all that a dying and a living Saviour can do, is ours! All that is embraced in the wide compass between the lowest depths of the tomb of Jesus and the infinite heights of His eternal crown, all is ours! Many were the wonders which His death achieved for enemies; many more will be the wonders yet to be accomplished for His friends!

Hear how Scripture speaks of His life. “When He who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.” His appearing as our life shall bring with it all that blessedness and glory which pertain to Him as the living One—as our life. “Because I live ye shall live also.” He cannot die; He liveth forever. He is the resurrection and the life; therefore life, and all that life comprises, shall be ours. “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” He lives as if just on purpose to intercede for us; and oh, what will not the intercession of this ever living One secure for us! “Fear not,” He says, “I am He that liveth and was dead; and am alive for evermore; and have the keys of hell and death.” What more can we need, not simply to dissipate all fear, but to call up in us the most assured hope—nay, to fill us with the joy unspeakable and full of glory?

Of what, then, is it that this life of Christ gives us the assurance? Of salvation says the apostle: “We shall be saved by His life.” Reconciliation is the result of His death; salvation, of His life!

But what does this salvation include? It is, as we have already seen, the entire reversal of our lost estate. And this includes much. It is, in the very largest sense, a “manifold salvation.” It is deliverance from the wrath to come, from the horrors of an eternal hell. Of this, His death gives us the assurance; His life, much more; for hell itself, with all its powers and potentates, cannot prevail against Him who has subdued its prince. It is deliverance from guilt. However infinite that guilt may be, there is entire salvation from it all, salvation sure and irreversible. It is deliverance from sin. It assails sin in its very citadel, the inmost soul, and casts it out. No amount of corruption can withstand it. Self gives way, the flesh is crucified; the old man dies; the inward man is renewed day by day. It is deliverance from death,—the death both of body and soul, the first and second death. The Saviour has shaken the grave, and flung open its gates. Life,—life beyond the tomb, life in resurrection,—is what He has secured for us. “I am the resurrection and the life”; “Because I live ye shall live also”; “I have the keys of hell and death.” Thus he speaks to us assuring us of redemption from the power of the grave. It is deliverance from want. His fullness takes away the possibility of any want, from the moment that our connection with Him began. Want from that time became impossible; for all His riches became ours. His fullness was always at command. It is deliverance from enemies and perils. Many and mighty as these might be, they could not affect us. We were beyond their reach. They might aim at us, but they could not harm. Our victory over them was sure.

And as we are thus assured not only of reconciliation but of salvation from all evil in every form, so are we put in possession of every good. “All things” become ours: for He who saves us makes full provision for His saved ones. All that a dying Saviour could secure for us is freely given; nay more, all that a living Saviour possesses for Himself becomes also ours. Joy, glory, dominion, royalty, priesthood, and a boundless inheritance,—all these are ours, and all of them made irreversibly sure to us from the fact that “Jesus liveth.” He was dead and is alive; yea, and He liveth for evermore. This is our pledge for the perpetuity of our possession. He lives; and all that a living Saviour can do for us shall be done. He ever liveth to make intercession for us: what more do we need to assure us that “things present, things to come, life and death,” all are ours; for we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s? If His death made such a glorious commencement for us when we were enemies, what will not His life carry out and consummate for us now that we are friends?

Here, then, let us rest, for surely the resting place is a sufficient one. With arguments such as those of the apostle, let us confront Satan, breaking all his snares, overthrowing all his might; and disentangling ourselves from his subtlest sophistries. On grounds such as these, let us cast aside the various processes of doubting through which so many seem to think it necessary to pass; not listening to the whispers of unbelief, but meeting them all with the resistless argument of our text.

Here, too, let us greatly rejoice, turning this argument into a song of triumph; for surely it is both. It is as much the latter as it is the former. And more especially let us do so in these last days, when we are looking for the return of this same living Saviour. The prospect of His speedy arrival seems to impart to it double edge and force. Carrying out the argument we can say, If an absent Saviour has done so much for us, what will not a present Saviour do? If, when afar off, He has done such things for us, what will He not do when He is nigh? If the Man of Sorrows did so much for us, what will not the mighty Conqueror do? If, when put to shame, He did such great things for us, what will He not do when He is glorified? If, upon the cross, He so blessed and befriended us, what may we not expect when He sits upon His throne? If when He appeared on earth without form or comeliness, He wrought such wonders for us, what may we not look for when He comes in His beauty as the Church’s Bridegroom? If, when He came as the son of the carpenter,—the despised son of Mary,—He achieved such victories and won such honours for us, what may we not anticipate when He comes in glory as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Petitionary Hymns
Poem XXXIII.
Augustus Toplady (1740–1778)

Come from on high, my King and God,
My confidence thou art;
Display the virtue of thy blood,
And circumcise my heart.

From heav’n, thy holy place, on me
Descend in mercy down;
Water of life, I thirst for thee,
To know thee for my own.

Rend, O rend the guilty veil,
That keeps me from my God;
Remove the bar, and let me feel
That I am thine abode.

O might this worthless heart of mine
The Saviour’s temple be!
Empty’d of ev’ry love but thine,
And shut to all but thee!

—The Complete Works of Augustus Toplady (Sprinkle Publications, 1987).

19 . . . the revealing of the sons of God.

—Romans 8

The name, sons of God, is not exclusively applicable to the church. Angels are called sons (Job 38:7); so is Adam (Luke 3:38); so is Israel (Hosea 1:10). Yet the redeemed get that name in a deeper, fuller sense, by reason of their higher standing and their closer connection with the Son of God (1 John 3:1; Romans 8:17, 29; Revelation 21:7). There are thus outer and inner, higher and lower, circles of sonship; Christ the one center; and His redeemed occupying the innermost circle or region nearest to Himself, and nearest to the Father.

The history of these “sons,”—these heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, the redeemed from among men,—divides itself into the following parts or epochs:

I. Their past eternity. They had a history ere they were born; not conscious to themselves, but truly in the eye and purpose of God. (Roman 8:29; Ephesians 1:3, 5; 2 Timothy 1:9; Revelation 17:8.) In these passages the history of each saint and of the church of God is traced to that eternity in which God only existed. Even then they were sons of God by anticipation; sons of God in the Father’s purpose, and in the everlasting covenant. How marvelous, how glorious their history!

II. Their unregenerate life on earth. They were born no better than others; shapen in iniquity; children of wrath; able to claim kindred only with the first Adam, only with the flesh and with earth; not a vestige of the second Adam about them; no trace of heavenly sonship; no lineament of their Father in heaven; walking according to the course of this world; hateful and hating one another; their hearts “enmity against God.”

III. Their adoption. In God’s purpose this adoption stood from eternity; but it was seen when they actually passed out of the family of the evil one into that of God. When they were begotten again they became sons, receiving the name, privileges, legal rights of Sons. Let us note the different statements of Scripture as to these things:

(1.) They are begotten again. (1 Peter 1:3.) They are born of time Spirit (John 3:3), born from above. (2.) They believe. (Galatians 3:26.) They pass out of the region of unbelief into that of faith. In believing they become sons. (3.) They receive Christ. (John 1:12.) They accept the Father’s testimony to Him as the Son of God, and the Christ of God.

(4.) They get the name of sons. (1 John 3:1) They are now “called” sons of God. This is their new name, given by God himself.

(5.) They receive the spirit of adoption. (Galatians 4:5,6.) A new spirit fills them; the spirit of sonship; and, “Abba, Father,” is their cry.

(6.) They are led by the Spirit. (Roman 8:14.) They are not their own guides; nor do they trust in human guidance; but are led by Him.

(7.) They are chastened. (Hebrew 12:7.) Discipline is their lot; and chastisement is the badge of sonship.

(8.) They are brought to glory. (Hebrew 2:10.) To this are they redeemed and called. “Whom He justified, them He also glorified.”

(9.) They are made like Christ himself. (Romans 8:29; 1 John 3:2.) Conformity to the Son of God is their destiny and their privilege: “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

IV. Their time of obscurity. For a season they are hidden; men’s eyes are holden so that they do not recognize them; they are in disguise; the world does not believe that they are what they claim to be, or that their prospects are so very glorious. Their life is hid with Christ in God. It doth not yet appear what they shall be. They do not wear the raiment either of kings or of sons. They are strangers and pilgrims. This is the day of their obscurity and non-acknowledgment by men. As it was with their Lord, so with them. He was unknown and unrecognized; nay, despised and rejected. This is the discipline through which they are passing; this the manner in which they glorify the Father upon earth; this the trial of their faith, and this the touchstone of the world’s willingness to own their Lord. Are we content with obscurity?

V. The manifestation. The obscurity does not last always; nay, not long. The day is coming when the disguise shall drop off, and their royal robes display themselves; when He who is their life shall appear, they shall appear with Him. Then shall they be like Him to whom they adhered in the day of sorrow and gloom. But let us see, (1.) What this manifestation is. (The word is the same as in 1 Corinthians 1:7; 2 Thessalonians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:7, 13; 4:13.) It is revelation, or outshining, or transfiguration. They are in this conformed to their Lord. They were like Him in their obscurity; they shall be like Him in their manifestation. It shall be transfiguration glory; resurrection glory; royal glory; bridal glory; priestly glory. What a contrast between the obscurity and the manifestation will be presented in that day of unveiling, when they shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. What a future is ours! how unlike our present!

(2.) When shall the manifestation be? In the day of Christ’s appearing; not in the day of death. The soul of the saint is blessed when he dies; he is with Christ in Paradise; but still the glory is not full, and the body is still in the grave; the grave is part of our obscurity. But when time Lord descends from heaven, then the dead in Christ shall rise; then this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and death be swallowed up in victory.

(3.) How long shall the manifestation be? Forever. A whole eternity of glory. Our obscurity was but a day; our glory is everlasting. We are to shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars forever and ever. What a blaze of splendor will break forth from the glorified church, in the day of manifestation! What, in comparison with this, is the brightness of the sun or stars?

Let us walk worthy of our prospects; content with present obscurity and shame; “passing the time of our sojourning here in fear.”

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

The Riches of God’s Word
Samuel Stennett (1727–1795)

Let avarice, from shore to shore,
Her favorite god pursue;
Thy word, O Lord, we value more
Than India or Peru.

Here mines of knowledge, love, and joy,
Are opened to our sight;
The purest gold without alloy,
And gems divinely bright.

The councils of redeeming grace,
These sacred leaves unfold;
And here the Savior's lovely face
Our raptured eyes behold.

Here, light descending from above
Directs our doubtful feet;
Here, promises of heavenly love
Our ardent wishes meet.

Our numerous griefs are here redrest,
And all our wants supplied;
Nought we can ask to make us blessed,
Is in this book denied.

For these inestimable gains,
That so enrich the mind,
O may we search with eager pains,
Assured that we shall find!

—Worthy Is the Lamb (Soli Deo Gloria, 2004).

19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

—Romans 8

When the night is darkest, and the stars are hidden, and the clouds are black, then we think most of the clear fair day, and long for its dawn. When the storm is roughest, with the waves and wind roaring round the labouring vessel, then we are troubled, and look eagerly out for the glad and sunny calm. When winter binds earth in its chain of frost, and wraps it in snow and ice, then we begin to ask for spring, with its flowers, and songs, and verdure. So with the saint, as represented by the apostle here. This is night, and storm, and winter to him; he is ever thinking of the day, and the calm, and the spring. Like one sitting amid the ruins of the earthly Jerusalem, lie sighs for the glory of the heavenly city.

“From banishment she more and more,
Desires to see her country dear;
She sits and sends her sighs before,
Her joys and treasures all be there.”—(Old Hymn.)

The weariness, and conflict, and sufferings of this present life, call up in the apostle the wonderful thoughts contained in these verses relating to creation and to the Church of God, to the wretchedness of this evil world and groaning earth, and the perfection of that world that is to come,—that new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We thus interpret the whole passage, beginning, as it ought, at the middle of the seventeenth verse:—“If indeed we suffer together, it is that we may be also glorified together; for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory about to be revealed in us, (which reaches towards us, έις). For the earnest expectation of creation waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God; for creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but on account of the subjecter (God), who (for His own purposes), hath subjected it in hope, because creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of the corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans together and travails together until now. And not creation only, but we ourselves also, (although) possessing the first fruit of the Spirit, (the Spirit as a first fruit), even we groan in ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of our body; for (moreover) by this hope we are saved; (the things of this hope are no doubt unseen, otherwise it would not be hope) but a hope that is seen is not a hope. But if we do not see, and yet hope, then we wait in patience.”

Such is the meaning of the passage; let us now learn in detail what the apostle reveals as to creation, and as to the church.

I. Creation. Here (as in Matthew 10:6, “from the beginning of the creation,”) (the word signifies “the earth and the fullness thereof” (1 Corinthians 10: 26), or that which the Holy Spirit describes in the first chapter of Genesis, and pronounced “good” and “very good.” For matter (no less than spirit) is God’s handiwork, and therefore precious in His sight. Let us read and understand Genesis 1; Psalms 8:19, 148:; Proverbs 8.

(1.) Its subjection to vanity. Vanity means that which is vanishing, liable to change and decay, “vanity of vanities.” It means evil in opposition to good, emptiness in contrast with fullness. This material creation was made “good” and stable; but man’s sin let in evil upon it, brought on it the curse, made it crumble down and wither, till it not only decays and waxes old, but is ready to vanish away. To this vanity the Creator has subjected it, in consequence of its connection with man: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Genesis 3:17). This passage in Genesis contains the act or sentence of subjection, as putting it under the power of “vanity,”—decay, corruption, disease, death. Not its own sin but man’s was the cause: “for thy sake.”[8]

(2.) Its earnest expectation. The word signifies the eagerness expressed by the head bent forward and the neck outstretched—intense and anxious longing. Such is the feeling figuratively ascribed to creation, as in Psalm 96:2, when it is called on to be glad, and rejoice, and clap hands, in expectation of its coming Deliverer and King. This, then, is creation’s attitude as seen and interpreted by God. He looks down on creation, and regards it as expecting, waiting, watching, longing, just as He is said to hear the cry of the young lions for food.

(3.) Its groans and travail-pangs. It is hike a sick man racked with pain, and crying out for relief; it is as a woman in labour, suffering the pains of childbirth, and longing for the moment when she shall be delivered. All nature sighs as if conscious of imperfection, as if bowed down under the curse. Blight, decay, death, storms, earthquakes, lightnings, are all the groans of creation, and perhaps still more, the sufferings of the beasts of the field, and fowls of the air; for their case seems unspeakably sad, suffering at the hands of man in a thousand ways not by any fault of their own. Perhaps also the labour pangs of earth may not simply be to shake of the corruption with its bondage; but especially to be delivered of the millions and millions of bodies which it contains. Does it not travail in pain to be delivered of the dust of the saints which it has carried in its womb for ages? and of earth also shall it not be said, “in the beauties of holiness from (more than) the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth (Psalm 110:3)?”

(4.) Its deliverance. This is the day of creation’s bondage, in which corruption (the corruption or old curse) holds it; the day of its liberty,—“the liberty of the glory,”—is coming, the “times of the restitution of all things;” the revocation of the curse; the bestowal of the long deferred blessing; the renewal of “the heavens and earth which are now.” Creation is represented as knowing this its glorious destiny, and looking forward to it, as simultaneous with the manifestation of the sons of God, the day when these sons shall shine forth in the kingdom of their Father; for, “when He who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.”

Thus all creation looks forward to its perfection, groaning under imperfection; anticipating the “new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” Bright hope! Sweet consolation to us when moving about each day amid the vanity of a sin-laden earth, and listening to its groans and pangs! Rest for a weary world, tarry not! Earth’s days of weariness are now drawing to a close. These long ages of suffering and vanity have surely been enough to demonstrate the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

II. The church. It is described as “we who have the first fruits of the Spirit,”—as “the sons of God.” It is composed of the redeemed from among men from him by whom the curse and the vanity were brought in, to the last of His redeemed sons; a glorious church,—whose members are “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,”—“the general assembly and church of the firstborn,”—God’s kings and priests, prepared for His everlasting kingdom.

What, then, says the apostle here of this church—of its present and its future.

Mark,—

(1.) Its sufferings. He calls them the sufferings of this present time; sufferings with Christ, as well as sufferings for Christ. There are fightings without, and fears within; enemies all around; tribulation on every hand,—in body, and soul, and spirit; weary limbs, weeping eyes, drooping hands, feeble knees, fainting spirits, aching heads, broken hearts: even when outward persecution assails not. “Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God.” “I fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ.”

(2.) Its groans. “We ourselves groan within ourselves,” sometimes articulately, and sometimes with the groanings that cannot be uttered. As Jeremiah says, “Our sighs are many, and our heart is faint.” The church’s groans are in unison and sympathy with a groaning creation. An absent King, a present usurper, a cursed soil, overflowing evil, disease, sorrow, death: these make it groan even in the midst of its “joy unspeakable.”

(3.) Its waiting. “Waiting,”—“patient waiting,”—“hoping,”—this is the church’s attitude, in harmony with creation. The feeling and attitude of the church intimates that the inheritance is yet to come. “Not now, not yet; but soon and surely; therefore we wait,” may be said to be its language. It waits now, in accordance with the saints of all ages past, for deliverance from the bondage of the corruption, and for the liberty of the glory, for the reversal of all the evil which the first Adam introduced, and for the in bringing of all the good and the glory which the second Adam has purchased.

(4.) Its adoption. “Even now are we the sons of God;” we have already received the Spirit of adoption, crying, Abba, Father. But as it was resurrection that manifested (Romans 1:4) Christ’s own Sonship (though He was the eternal Son), so by resurrection is our sonship or adoption to be manifested. The day of adoption is here called the day of the redemption of the body. For this fullness of divine, and visible, and proclaimed adoption, we wait in hope and patience.

(5.) Its manifestation. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” As Christ is hidden, so are we just now. We are sons, and kings, and heirs, in disguise. But the day of revelation comes; “when He who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory.” If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. The day of His recognition and crowning shall be ours also.

(6.) Its liberty. In one sense we are free, Christ bath made us free. In another, we are sharers of the bondage of the corruption; we groan within ourselves; we cry, O, wretched men, who shall deliver us; we are carnal, sold under sin. The day of full freedom is at hand, eternal and glorious.

(7.) Its glory. This is “the glory to be revealed;” it is the day of the glory for heaven and earth, of which it is said, “The wise shall inherit glory,”—Christ’s glory, the church’s glory, creation’s glory,—glory such as that described in the two last chapters of Revelation, an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

See then,—

1. The power and poison of sin. It was one sin that ruined man, and marred creation, and introduced death. The effects of that one sin are still felt; they have lasted nearly six thousand years, and are as terrible as ever. What must sin be!

2. The completeness of the deliverance. Not man only, but man’s earth, shares this; not man’s soul alone, but man’s body too; it will be the undoing of the wrongs, and sorrows, and groans, of ages. The second Adam’s triumph will be complete. His blood will not only give white raiment to His saints, but will wash creation white.

3. The unbelieving man’s loss. He loses his soul; he loses heaven, and God, and glory, and the resurrection unto life; the incorruptible inheritance; the blessedness of the eternal rest, and the liberty of the glory, the joy and brightness of the manifestations of the sons of God.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Hymn LIX.
The Refuge, River, and Rock of the Church.
Isaiah xxxii. 2.
John Newton (1725–1807)

He who on earth as man was known,
And bore our sins and pains;
Now, seated on th’ eternal throne,
The God of glory reigns.

His hands the wheels of nature guide
With an unerring skill;
And countless worlds extended wide,
Obey his sov’reign will.

While harps unnumber’d sound his praise,
In yonder world above;
His saints on earth admire his ways,
And glory in his love.

His righteousness, to faith revealed,
Wrought out for guilty worms,
Affords a hiding place and shield,
From enemies and storms.

This land, thro’ which his pilgrims go,
Is desolate and dry;
But streams of grace from him o’erflow
Their thirst to satisfy.

When troubles, like a burning sun,
Beat heavy on their head;
To this almighty Rock they run,
And find a pleasing shade.

How glorious he! how happy they
In such a glorious friend!
Whose love secures them all the way,
And crowns them at the end.

—Olney Hymns. Book I: On select Passages of Scripture.

32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

—Romans 8

This is inspired logic; yet it is most simple and natural reasoning. It goes straight down to understanding, heart, and conscience. It is irresistible. It contains, moreover, the whole gospel of the grace of God. It announces to us that perfect love which casteth out fear; and shews us the gracious character of God, as interpreted and illustrated by the gift of his Son. It says, “herein is love, and what will that love not do for you? here is the measure of that love, and does not that measure take in all you need?

Let us put the statement in this way—the one gift, and the many gifts,—or the one great gift, and the many lesser gifts flowing out of it, and pledged to us by the love which gave it.

I. The one gift. It is “the unspeakable gift,” of which it is said, “God so loved the world that he gave his Son.” Our text thus expresses it, “he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.” It is then of his Son, his own Son, his only begotten Son, his beloved Son, that the passage speaks. And regarding him it says, that “he spared him not.” He might have spared him; he did not need to do otherwise; it was an infinite sacrifice; yet he spared him not, that he might spare us. It was not want of love to him, but it was love to us that led him not to spare him. “How shall I give thee up?” he said to rebellious Israel, how much more to his obedient holy Son, “How shall I deliver thee up?” “How shall I nail thee to the cross, and lay thee in the grave?” “My heart is turned within me, my repentance is kindled together.” This one great gift He freely gave. He spared not his Son, but delivered Him up for us all. To lowliness, to shame, to weariness, to banishment, to sorrow, to hunger and thirst, to agony and death, He delivered Him up. He spared not Him, that He might spare us; he delivered Him up, that He might not deliver up us. The gift is one, but it is infinite. There is none like it; none; nor can be. It is the great gift, the gift of gifts.

But the “delivering up,” is that which so greatly enhances the giving and the gift. He was delivered up (1) not to honour, but to dishonour; (2) not to joy, but to sorrow; (3) not to the blessing, but to the curse,—nay, was made a curse for us, was made sin for us; (4) not to angels to worship, but to devils to tempt; (5) not to a throne, but to a cross; (6) not to life, but to death. How immense then the gift! Though but one, it transcends myriads; nay, all other gifts gathered together. It was a test of love such as nothing else could have been. How real, how true, how vast must that love have been. Here is its sincerity demonstrated. Here are its dimensions measured. What is its height? The answer is, “He spared not His Son.” What is its depth? “He spared not His Son.” What is its length? “He spared not His Son.” What is its breadth? “He spared not His Son.” Nay, He delivered Him up. Nay, He laid our sins upon Him; He made Him a curse for us. The more that we meditate on this one gift, the more does its greatness display itself. It passeth all measurement and all understanding. Such a gift for such creatures! Such a gift for sinners; for those whose portion was wrath and condemnation!

II. The many gifts. These are the “all things” of which the apostle speaks. His argument is, “He who has given you His Son, will He deny you anything?” We cannot possibly need or ask anything half so precious as that which He has already given, and therefore we need not fear obtaining anything. He who has given a whole ocean, will He refuse a drop? He who has given all earth and heaven, will He refuse an inch of land? His willingness to give, and to give to any extent whatever, has been so manifested in the gift of His Son, that we cannot doubt. That one great gift was given freely, will He not give all other things as freely? That one gift was given unasked, will He not give all others for the asking? That one gift cost Him much, these others cost Him nothing but the delight of giving. That one gift was sent to us when we were turning away from Him, will He not bestow these lesser gifts on those who are turning towards Him? That one gift came when there was “no intercessor,” what, then, may we not expect when there is such an Intercessor as He who is Himself both gift and intercessor? When the great gift was sent there was no blood, no righteousness, no sacrifice; what may we not count upon as to the lesser gifts, now that blood, and sacrifice, and righteousness have come?

We are thus thrown upon God’s character as interpreted by His great gift, and we are taught how to reason from that gift, how to draw our confidence towards God from that gift, respecting “all things.” Among these “all things,” let us note the following:—

(1.) Forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness,—complete, and free, and unchangeable,—for the chief of sinners; regarding which we reason, as did the apostle, He that spared not His own Son, will He not forgive my sins? will He not give me peace of conscience, and a sense of acceptance, and deliverance from condemnation?

(2.) Light and love. These are what He delights to give; and they have been purchased for the sinner. There is now no hindrance to His giving these. For the darkest mind there is light; for the coldest heart there is love. He that spared not His own Son, will He refuse us these?

(3.) Renewal in the whole man. He who spared not His own Son, will He not renew us in the spirit of our mind? Will He not take out of us the stony heart, and give the heart of flesh?

(4.) The Holy Ghost. He that gave His Son, will He refuse His Spirit? It cost Him much to give His Son; but it costs Him nothing to give His Spirit. Will He not give Him when we ask?

He that spared not His Son, will He not give us all things? Will He not quicken, and comfort, and heal, and bless, and cheer, and save?

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Petitionary Hymns
Poem XXXIV. I know that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
Augustus Toplady (1740–1778)

Lord, is not all from thee?
Is not all fulness thine?
Whate’er of good there is in me,
O Lord, is none of mine.

Each holy tendency
Did not thy mercy give?
And what, O Saviour, what have I
That I did not receive?

I cannot speak a word,
Or think a thought that’s good,
But what proceedeth from the Lord
And cometh forth from God.

Jesus, I know full well,
What my best actions are:
They’d sink my grievous soul to hell,
If unrefin’d they were.

Myself and all I do,
O sprinkle with thy blood;
Renew me, Saviour, ere I go,
To stand before my God.

I of myself have nought,
That can his justice please;
Not one right word, nor act, nor thought,
But what I owe to grace.

—The Complete Works of Augustus Toplady (Sprinkle Publications, 1987).

33  Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;

—Romans 8

One of the church’s names is “elect of God”; and each of its living members is one whose name is written in the book of life from the foundation of the world (Revelation 17:8). Of these chosen ones the history is thus summed up: “Whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Romans 7:30).

The state in which each one of these is born into the world is that of “condemnation”; the state into which each one is brought, in believing, is that of “no condemnation” (Romans 8:1). Forgiveness of sins—present, conscious, complete forgiveness—is that into which faith introduces us, and out of which unbelief alone can keep us. Justification from all things—certain, immediate, and unchanging justification—is our portion here. It is respecting us, as men forgiven and justified, that the apostle asks, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” On believing the gospel of forgiveness, they were placed beyond the reach and risk of any charge or impeachment whatsoever; they are brought by God into such a state as to render condemnation an impossibility; for the forgiveness is irreversible, and the righteousness in which they stand is divine.

Not that they cease to be sinners. But they cease to be treated as guilty. Iniquities prevail; but there is continual forgiveness to cancel these, and a perfect righteousness to cover these, and the ever-flowing blood of the everlasting covenant to wash all guilt away as it comes up, and to prevent their peace with God from being broken. They do sin; but they have an Advocate with the Father; and who can demand the execution of the penalty in their case? Who shall condemn? Who can do it? Who dare do it? Who has the right to do it? Not angels. They are too glad to welcome back the sinner, and to take the side of those whose sight God has taken. Devils would, if they could. But they cannot. The prey is taken from the mighty, and placed beyond their grasp. The law might have done it; but it has been satisfied; nay, magnified. It has therefore no claim, and could gain no object by accusing us; for our acquittal is a righteous one—an acquittal in which law itself rejoices.

Mark, then, how complete and how satisfactory the challenge is; for the words of our text are not so much a question as a challenge—a challenge thrown down before the universe!

I. It is a righteous challenge. It is not the challenge of one who, through might, had baffled right, and triumphed over law. It is that of one who sees all righteousness fulfilled, and all good confirmed, by that very sentence which acquits himself; who, unable to contribute aught toward his own acquittal, has recognized God’s righteous way of justifying the unrighteous, and in doing so, has found deliverance from condemnation. It is a challenge so righteous, that every righteous being responds to it; so righteous, that his own conscience, even when most fully awakened and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, rests satisfied and unalarmed; so righteous, that none can undertake to answer it, save those who are prepared to reject God’s way of saving the lost, and forgiving the condemned.

II. It is a holy challenge. it is not that of one who was seeking to sin that grace may abound, but of one who saw that this is God’s way of delivering him from sin, and making him hate sin. God’s way of forgiveness brings out all the loathsomeness of sin, shews it to be the enemy both of God and of the sinner. Thus the man who says, “Who shall hay anything to my charge? who is he that condemneth?” is the man who is also saying, “Now I have some hope of being holy; now I shall be delivered from sin; now sin has received its death-blow; and now love and a free pardon will do what terror and uncertainty, and an unsatisfied law, could never have done. Being delivered from the first and great matter of seeking a forgiveness, by having got that question for ever laid to rest, I am free to attend undistractedly to the one question, How shall I be holy, and by a holy life serve and glorify God?”

III. It is a joyful challenge. The question, and the way of putting it, shew the exulting gladness of the soul. It is the joy of a soul delivered from an infinite fear; from overwhelming foreboding of wrath; from the uncertainties of the future, and the dreaded vengeance of an angry God. What gladness is this! To be forgiven all sin, and clothed with an infinite righteousness! To be as thoroughly assured of the favor of God, as formerly of His displeasure! To see the dark cloud of wrath which had wrapped the soul round rise upwards, and pass away, leaving the wide azure clear and bright, with not a mist to intercept the light of reconciliation and love, pouring down from the heaven of heavens! What joy unspeakable and full of glory is this!

IV. It is an unanswerable challenge. It is boldly put, and with no muffled voice. It is spoken aloud, that all may hear, and answer if they can. But no one can take it up. There is silence in heaven, and earth, and hell. It is Paul’s challenge to the universe. Nay rather, it is the Holy Spirit’s challenge. Who shall answer Paul? Who shall answer the Holy Ghost? Who shall condemn us? Who shall lay anything to our charge? Who shall trouble our conscience or break our peace? We ask aloud; we repeat the challenge to the devil and all his legions. But no answer is given. We hear only the echo of our own voice. It is unanswerable even now; for from the first moment that we believed, we were entitled to take it up. It shall be no less unanswerable when we go down to the tomb; and we may make the caverns of the dead re-echo with it. It shall be unanswerable in the day of the Lord; so that, even when standing before the judgment seat, surrounded with angels, or surrounded with devils, we may lift up our voice and say, Who shall lay anything to my charge?

Nor is there anything presumptuous in this challenge. It is one of simple faith. It is meant for every believing man; and there is something lacking in that faith which falters here. A believed gospel ought to lead him who believes it to adopt this bold and blessed attitude. For a believed gospel is meant to assure the believing soul of forgiveness and eternal life.

It is a challenge which God himself will own. He does not reckon it too bold or too decided. He puts it into our lips, and He will acknowledge it. In our believing, we set our Amen to His testimony; and in His giving us this challenge, He is setting His Amen to our faith. Nay, not only will He own it, but He will take it up out of our lips, and Himself proclaim it through the universe, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of my elect?”

Our right to take up this challenge is simply our having believed the gospel. It is not our graces or evidences that embolden us thus to speak. It is not as holy men, or old Christians, or deeply humbled souls, that we have a warrant to do so. Our warrant is simply our having believed the gospel. How much we lose from not seeing the sure and high standing into which a believed gospel brings us, long before we have time to consider our own selves, or number up our graces! It would indeed be presumption to rest an assurance like this, or a challenge like this, upon our own graces; but it is no presumption to rest this on the gospel of the grace of God.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

The Efficacy of God’s Word
Philip Doddridge (1702–1751)

With reverend awe, tremendous Lord,
We hear the thunders of Thy Word;
The pride of Lebanon it breaks;
Swift the celestial fire descends,
The flinty rock in pieces rends,
And earth to its deep centre shakes.

Arrayed in majesty divine,
Here sanctity and justice shine,
And horror strikes the rebel through,
While loud this awful voice makes known
The wonders which Thy sword hath done.
And what Thy vengeance yet shall do.

So spread the honors of Thy name;
The terrors of a God proclaim;
Thick let the pointed arrows fly,
Till sinners, humbled in the dust,
Shall own the execution just,
And bless the hand by which they die.

Then clear the dark tempestuous day.
And radiant beams of love display;
Each prostrate soul let mercy raise;
So shall the bleeding captives feel,
Thy word, which gave the wound, can heal,
And change their notes to songs of praise.

—Worthy Is the Lamb (Soli Deo Gloria, 2004).

37  But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

—Romans 8

Within the six verses preceding this, we have no less than six most striking questions; some apparently abrupt, but all of them very expressive: (1.) What shall we say to these things? (2.) Who can be against us? (3.) How shall He not give us all things? (4.) Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? (5.) Who is he that condemneth? (6.) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

At the close of these questions mention is made of seven evils, all which were more or less the portion of the saints: (1) tribulation; (2) distress; (3) persecution; (4) famine; (5) nakedness; (6) peril; (7) sword. And to shew that such was the lot of the saints even under the New Testament, Paul quotes a psalm referring to Old Testament saints, thus assuming the oneness of the church in all ages, even in suffering and in consolation; the oneness of the church in battle and in victory. One faith, one covenant, one blood, one church, from the beginning!

Here are two things: (1) the victory; (2) How to win it.

I. The victory. Our life is a warfare.

(1.) The good fight. It is to battle that the church is called; not to a mere parade, or review, or display of arms; each saint is to war a good warfare; for the moment we take our stand on Christ’s side, our enemies gather to the assault.

(2.) The victory. Conquerors! Yes; not merely warriors but conquerors. This verse links itself with the seven promises to the seven conquerors in the churches of Asia. To him that overcometh, is the message sent.

(3.) The abundant victory. For this is the meaning of the word (ύπεζνιχώμεν). It corresponds to Peter’s expression as to the “abundant entrance into the kingdom” (2 Peter 1:2). It is not a mere victory, no more—a bare overthrow of the enemies, but a complete and glorious victory. It is not being “saved so as by fire,”—mere salvation and nothing beyond, but a marvelous and perfect salvation. Yes, that which we win is an “abundant victory.”

(4.) The victory over all the sevenfold evils. We are made to triumph over them,—every one of them. They assail us, we meet them face to face. Each is in itself an evil, a sorrow, a pang; or rather a series,—a long series it may be of such,—but over each of them in succession we triumph: “Thou shall tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot” (Psalm 91:13). Thus evil becomes good, and time bitter sweet.

(5.) The victory through means of these sevenfold evils. For this I suppose to be the real point of the passage;—“Nay, it is in all these things (or rather by means of as ἐν very often signifies), that we win an abundant victory.” We not only conquer these, but we take them up and make use of them as our weapons for overthrowing our other enemies. These seeming evils are the very instruments of victory. They seem drags—we make them ladders for ascending, wings for raising us above things seen and temporal. Thus we glory in tribulations (Romans 5:3). This is the last and noblest use of trial; which we are apt to lose sight of. It is not always easy thus to use tribulation, and to convert it into a means of triumph; yet certainly it is to this that we are called. Say not, I will submit, I will not murmur, I will try to fight. All this is right; but thou art called to much more than this. So use thy sorrows as to make them the very means of conquer; so use them, as that thou shalt say at last, Had it not been for these tribulations my victory had been a poor one,—but half a victory; thus “out of the eater there shall come forth meat, and out of the strong shall come forth sweetness.” We must learn how to use affliction; not passively, but actively; nay, aggressively.

II. The way in which it is won. “Through Him that loved us,”—yes, Him that “loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.”

(1.) He provides the strength. Weakness is ours; and we begin time fight with the acknowledgment of this. But “all power is given” to Christ for us; and out of that fullness of power “we receive.” “The power of Christ rests (pitches its tent over us), on us” (2 Corinthians 12:9): “My strength is made perfect in weakness”; so that “when we are weak then we are strong.” Another’s strength, as well as another’s righteousness, is placed at our disposal.

(2.) He provides the weapons. Our weapons are from a divine arsenal,—the tower of David “builded for an armory.” Spear, sword, buckler, girdle, and helmet, are all of His making and bestowing. (Ephesians 6:11-15.)

(3.) He provides the battlefield. The skillful general chooses his battlefield. So does our Captain. It is not the choice of the enemy; or of self; still less is it taken up at random, or by chance. It is carefully selected by Him that loved us. The time of battle, the nature of the battle, the duration of the battle, the intensity or peculiarity of the assault, all these are chosen by Him. Each sorrow, each tribulation, each peril, is of His appointment in every item and detail.

(4.) He provides the battle cry. As at Trafalgar, the word that Nelson sent through each vessel and every heart, was, “England expects every man to do his duty”; so our Captain gives His battle words. They are such as these: “The love of Christ constraineth us”; “Who is he that condemneth”? “fight the good fight of faith”; “behold I come quickly.”

(5.) He provides the rewards. Of these, seven are named in the epistles to the Asian churches. These are representative rewards, as the churches are representative churches. Each reward is glorious; and each corresponding with the battle and the victory.

O Christian! fight bravely. Face every enemy, small or great. Turn the guns of the enemy against himself. Seize the hostile batteries, and man them. It is an evil day; a day of yielding and compromise. Stand fast in the faith, and in the Lord.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

The Shadow of the Cross.
Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

Oppressed with noon-day’s scorching heat,
To yonder cross I flee;
Beneath its shelter take my seat;
No shade like this for me!

Beneath that cross clear waters burst,
A fountain sparkling free;
And there I quench my desert thirst;
No spring like this for me!

A stranger here, I pitch my tent
Beneath this spreading tree;
Here shall my pilgrim life be spent;
No home like this for me!

For burdened ones a resting-place,
Beside that cross I see;
Here I cast off my weariness;
No rest like this for me!

—Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope, First Series (James Nisbet & Co., 1878).

13  for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

—Romans 10

Paul’s gospel was the good news of a righteousness for Gentile as well as Jew,—the righteousness of God,—good news of “the righteousness of Him who is our God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1),—good news of the righteousness of Him who is Jehovah-Zidkenu, “the Lord our righteousness.”

There is a remarkable statement in the previous chapter (verse 30): “That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith,”—that is, the Gentiles, who were seeking no righteousness at all, have got the very best; just as the prodigal son received the “best robe” in the house. This righteousness was offered to Israel first, but rejected by them; and it is of this rejection that the tenth chapter speaks. In speaking of it, Paul first proclaims “Christ as the end of the law (the great fulfillment or fulfiller of the law) for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Then he contrasts the two kinds of righteousness, namely, that which comes by working, and that which comes by believing. The former assumes that all is yet to be done; the latter, that all has been done, and that no doing (for obtaining pardon) is needed,—nothing more of any kind whatsoever than is done by a man when he listens and lets in the word by his ear into his heart (verse 8). This “word of faith,” or word spoken in order to be believed, is the burden of his preaching. It is that which Isaiah calls “our report.” He thus describes it “If thou shalt confess Christ (as He has enjoined, Matthew 10:32), believing in Him, and in God who raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved; for with the inner man we believe so as to be justified, and with the mouth we make that confession which issues in salvation, and because of which Christ will confess us in the great day.”

Then in the thirteenth verse come the words of our text, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” We may take “calling on the name of,” as meaning (1) the recognition of Jehovah as the true God; (2) as the acting on that recognition, and going to Him for salvation. It resembles Hebrew 11:6: “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Hear then, O man, the gospel which Paul here preaches to thee, whether Jew or Gentile! It is the gospel or good news of “salvation.” Believe his “report” and live. Faith cometh by hearing.

I. The nearness. The “word” is nigh; the “gospel” is nigh; the “salvation” is nigh,—as near as the sounds are which enter into the ear of a man. The whole provision made on the cross for sinners is brought nigh to us. We have not to stir,—not to move a hairbreadth in order to get at it. It is already at the side of every sinner to whom the gospel has come. It is like the manna which fell around Israel’s tents; it is like the water of “that rock which followed them.” As near as it is possible for one thing to be to another, is all this fullness of divine grace. We need not climb to heaven, that would be to deny its nearness, and to act as if Christ had never come down. We need not descend into the earth, that would be to deny its nearness, and to say that Christ had not come up, and needed to be brought up by us. No. All things are ready; all things are near.

II. The freeness. A free gospel—absolutely without condition or price; a free salvation, to the obtaining of which man contributes nothing, by his money, or his works, or his sufferings, or his prayers and tears. All is absolutely free; as free as the sunlight or the common air. No merit, no money, no purchase, no previous qualification. The gift of God is that which we see in every part. Freely. freely, are the blessed words in which God promulgates the “terms” on which man is to be permitted to obtain the blessings of the cross. Freely, freely, is the burden of our message. Price, whether direct or indirect, small or great, is refused. We must take it freely or not at all.

III. The speed. The gospel comes at once, the blessing tarries not. Like the touching of the electric wire, so the acceptance of the gospel brings instantaneous acceptance of our persons. No waiting, no interval, no distance, no hesitation. What God does, He does quickly. Swift as lightning the blessing comes to us. “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” It is not, “shall get some deliverance, or hope of deliverance,” but, “shall be saved.” We go at once, and at once we are saved.

IV. The simplicity. Yes, all is simple here; no mystery, no labyrinth, no toil.

“Oh how unlike the complex works of man,
Heaven’s easy, artless, unencumbered plan.”

All is profoundly great, yet unutterably simple; “majestic in its own simplicity.” “Call on the Lord’s name and be saved,” that is all. As our Lord said to the woman of Sychar, “Thou wouldest have asked, and He would have given.” The simpler the liker God; the simpler the more suitable for helpless man. The gospel is simple; and the great salvation is the exhibition of the simplest plan for saving and for blessing that can be conceived. Too simple to have been devised by man. It is the simplicity of God. It is this simplicity which makes it intelligible to a little child. To ask and to get,—that is the whole.

V. The certainty. There are no ambiguities nor peradventures in it. All is the most absolute assurance: “Shall be saved”! God always deals in certainties in His treatment of the sinner,—the certainties of eternal life or death: “He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” Christ and His cross are certainties; and he who credits God’s testimony to these, becomes identified with certainties; is at once and certainly blessed, forgiven, saved. And if we know that the acceptance of this testimony brings certain salvation; how foolish, how sinful to say, “Oh I accept the testimony, but I don’t know whether I am saved.” If thou givest credit to the divine word concerning the Son of God thou art saved. Of this there can be no doubt; for “God is not a man that He should lie.”

VI. The universality. All are not saved, nor washed, nor pardoned, nor redeemed; but to all the good news come. “Whosoever” is God’s wide word of invitation. Who shall say, “The tidings are not for name unless I can prove my election”? The gospel is to the “sons of men” (Proverbs 8:4). God in it is coming up to each sinner and saying, Here is life,—believe and live; here is the cup of salvation, drink and be saved; here is the writ of pardon, take it and be forgiven.

Round and round the world this “word of reconciliation” goes; and to each sinner, as it passes on, is the reconciliation presented. “Be thou reconciled to God,” is the special and personal message to each. “Call on the name of the Lord,” is God’s urgent proclamation; call, and thou shalt be saved! Go straight to God for salvation, a present and immediate salvation. Don’t say, as some do, I’ll go to Him first for faith, and repentance, and feeling; and then when I’ve got these, I’ll go boldly and ask salvation. Go at once, and go boldly for salvation,—for nothing less than this,—and thou shalt get it; for God is true.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

That Where I Am,
There Ye May Be Also.
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

How know I that it looms lovely that land I have never
seen,

With morning-glories and heartsease and unexampled
green,

With neither heat nor cold in the balm-redolent air?

Some of this, not all, I know; but this is so;

Christ is there.

How know I that blessedness befalls who dwell in
Paradise,

The outwearied hearts refreshing, rekindling the worn-out
eyes,

All souls singing, seeing, rejoicing everywhere?

Nay, much more than this I know; for this is so;

Christ is there.

O Lord Christ, Whom having not seen I love and desire to
love,

O Lord Christ, Who lookest on me uncomely yet still Thy
dove,

Take me to Thee in Paradise, Thine own made fair;

For whatever else I know, this thing is so;

Thou art there.

—Christina Rossetti, Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).

16  However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?”

—Romans 10

Let us observe four things here:

I. The report. The “gospel” mentioned in the first clause of this verse is the same as the “report” in the second. It is short and simple. It is thoroughly true. It is divine and perfect. It is well authenticated, so that doubt seems an impossibility. It is altogether glad. It is for the sons of men. It is the very report, concerning the very things which sinners need. It is truly suitable. It is the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

II. Man’s rejection of it. “Who bath believed”? Who? As if there were none who had accepted it! Not one! God has spoken; but men have ‘neither believed nor listened. God has loved; but men have refused His love. Men are not asked to do, but to take; yet they will not. They are not asked to save themselves, but to accept salvation; yet they turn away. God’s words are as the idle wind. His love is the last love they will ever turn to. His truthfulness is time thing which they question most; as if to make Him a liar, and His words of little worth, were no sin at all. This is man’s treatment of God and of His Son! God is not to be believed on any account, and least of all when He speaks in love! Christ is preached only to be slighted; and His gospel flung aside as not true; or, if true, still as a gospel which brings no certain pardon, no assurance of salvation; nay, which may be believed without making a man happy, or making him a child of God; which may be believed for years without giving peace, or light, or liberty.

III. The prophet’s disappointment. “Lord, who hath believed our report.” He expected something very different. He thought men would all receive it at once; that he would be surrounded with believing crowds! But “no man receiveth his testimony”! He is sorely perplexed, disappointed, confounded. Ah, it is in the very bitterness of disappointment that these words are spoken. He is grieved in spirit; troubled because of the dishonour done to God, and to His truthfulness; sad because of the ruin which men were bringing on themselves. He is like Jeremiah: “Oh that my head were waters”! He is like Paul, “Having sorrow in his heart.” He is like Christ weeping over Jerusalem. Such is a minister’s disappointment. He expects to be believed; and he is not! He expects God to be believed; and He is not! And were it not that he knows that God’s purpose concerning the many called and few chosen is now fulfilling, he would be a thoroughly disappointed man.

IV. The prophet’s appeal to Jehovah. Like Micah (7:7) in the midst of abounding iniquity, he says, “I will look unto the Lord.” Like the Lord, he says, “Even so, Father.” He turns from man to God. He does not upbraid man with unbelief; but turns to God. This is his refuge. Here he stays his soul. Into the bosom of his God he pours out all his griefs. It is a heavy burden; but he casts it on the Lord.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Contrition

O thou Most High,

It becomes me to be low in thy presence.
I am nothing compared with thee;

I possess not the rank and power of angels,
but thou hast made me what I am,
and placed me where I am;
help me to acquiesce in thy sovereign pleasure.

I thank thee that in the embryo state
of my endless being

I am capable by grace of improvement;
that I can bear thy image,
not by submissiveness, but by design,
and can work with thee and advance thy cause
and glory.

But, alas, the crown has fallen from my head:
I have sinned;
I am alien to thee;
my head is deceitful and wicked,
my mind an enemy to thy law.

Yet, in my lostness thou hast laid help
on the Mighty One
and he comes between to put his hands
on us both,
my Umpire, Daysman, Mediator,
whose blood is my peace,
whose righteousness is my strength,
whose condemnation is my freedom,
whose Spirit is my power,
whose heaven is my heritage.

Grant that I may feel more the strength
of thy grace
in subduing the evil of my nature,
in loosing me from the present evil world,
in supporting me under the trials of life,
in enabling me to abide with thee in my valleys,
in exercising me to have a conscience void
of offence before thee and before men.

In all my affairs may I distinguish between
duty and anxiety,
and may my character and not my
circumstances chiefly engage me.

—The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).

21  But as for Israel He says, “All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

—Romans 10

Let us mark here, first, God’s treatment of man; secondly, man’s treatment of God.

I. God’s treatment of man. It is of Israel specially that the apostle is speaking; but what is true of them in this case, is true of all. God in His dealings with man shews us that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways. As the heavens are to a grain of sand, or as ‘the ocean to a drop, so are His thoughts to ours; wider, fuller, larger, higher, deeper; like Himself and He is love. In all God’s words to Israel in the Old Testament, the good news of His wide and free love come out very simply. The New Testament formula, “Believe and be saved,” is not there; but the gracious character of Jehovah is fully unfolded, and so presented to sinners, as if it had been said, “Whoever owns the true God is saved; whoever is willing to come to Him is welcome; and whoever calls on Him shall not be put to shame.” Herein is love.

(1.) Long suffering. He stretches out His hands; He does so all the day long. We may take this as simply meaning the whole of each natural day of our lives; or the whole of “the day of salvation.” In either case we see the same longsuffering; God not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Here we see Him waiting to be gracious; pitying the sinner; not cutting him off in his sins; not easily provoked; merciful and gracious; forbearing anger and judgment; not putting forth His power, but waiting long and patiently; not visiting transgression, nor dealing sharply with the transgressor.

(2.) Earnest desire to bless. There is much more in the words than mere longsuffering or forbearance. There is the exhibition of the most intense yearning over the sons of men. There are no words spoken; it is the attitude that marks the earnestness and the longing. Jesus wept over Jerusalem; God stretches out His hands to sinners, like one pleading with them, like one trying to save them, like one beckoning to them, like one expressing by signs feelings too strong for utterance. How shall I give thee up! I have no pleasure in your death! Why will ye die! Come, now, and let us reason together! How often would I have gathered you! Ye will not come to me! O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Turn ye, turn ye! Come unto me! These are the feelings expressed by the posture in which God is here represented as standing,—looking down from heaven upon men, yearning over them, beseeching them to be reconciled. Earnest He is in this thing,—honestly, sincerely earnest, for He knows the worth of the soul which He has made, He knows the greatness of the joy or sorrow which must be its portion, He knows what the loss of heaven will be, and what the everlasting darkness will be,—and what the unchangeable eternity will be to which they are passing. Yes, God’s desire to bless the sons of men,—the chief of sinners amongst them,—is sincere and true, earnest and deep and warm; however difficult it may be to reconcile this with the fact of there being an endless hell; however impossible for us fully to answer the question so often put by unbelief within and without, Why then does He let any one perish since He has the power to save?

II. Man’s treatment of God. Man’s thoughts and ways toward God, are the reverse of God’s thoughts and ways toward man. He walks “after his own thoughts” is Isaiah’s expression (65:2). Man’s actings and thinkings and feelings toward God may be set out as follows:—

(1.) Indifference. Occupied with himself and his own world of pleasure and business, man treats God and His claims, whether of law or love, with disregard. God is not in all his thoughts. He tries not to think about God at all; to preoccupy his mind with other objects, so as to induce forgetfulness and indifference. The absence of God, and the want of His favor, are not things which concern him, or make him unhappy for a moment He can do without God!

(2.) Unbelief. Man in so far as his fellows are concerned is no unbeliever. He is quite ready to receive the testimony of men; nay, he is often credulous, and believes without evidence or against evidence. But in the things of God he is thoroughly an unbeliever; both as to God Himself, and as to the truth and testimony of God. He disbelieves and he distrusts. He has no confidence in God, or in His word. Faith in God is wholly alien to him.

(3.) Disobedience. In Isaiah (65:1) it is called “rebellion”; “walking in a way not good.” God’s will is a hateful thing to man; so is God’s law, which is the declaration of that will. To obey God save through terror is what he never thinks of; and even then it is mere outward compliance. Man’s heart never obeys God till renewed. His whole life is consistent and deliberate disobedience, sometimes more open and daring, and sometimes less.

(4.) Gainsaying. Man speaks against God; he acts against God. In both senses he is a gainsayer. He has no good word to say of God or of his Christ; he sets himself against both. Here we have such things as the following:

(a.) Captiousness. He is perpetually finding fault with God; with His word, and ways, and dispensations; with His actings toward individuals and the world at large. “Why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted His will,” is one form of human fault finding with God. “If we pine away in our iniquities, how shall we then live?” (Ezekiel 33:10) is another form. There are many forms of captious gainsaying or murmuring; this discontent and repining, and charging God either with injustice or unkindness.

(b.) Obstinacy. Stout-heartedness and stiff-neckedness are God’s frequent charges against Israel; no less against us. We are stubborn and self-willed; preferring our own way and wisdom to His. We are like the horse or mule; like the bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. We will neither be led nor driven. We resist; we kick against the pricks.

(c.) Refusal of blessing. Yes; man refuses to be blest. This is the most unaccountable part of man’s gainsaying. He thrusts away the love of God, and the blessing which that love holds out. He does not like (1) the blessing itself; (2) the terms on which it is given; (3) the giver; (4) the effects which would follow receiving it,—a holy life.

Thus man deals with God, setting himself against Him in all ways and things. Yet thus does God continue to deal with man in unwearied love and patience. He still bends over him to the last, as Jesus did over Jerusalem, yearning, pitying, longing to bless!

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Hymn 81. (l. m.)
A song for morning or evening. Lam. iii. 23; Isaiah xl. 7.

God, how endless is thy love!
Thy gifts are every evening new;
And morning mercies from above
Gently distil like early dew.

Thou spread’st the curtains of the night,
Great guardian of my sleeping hours;
Thy sovereign word restores the light,
And quickens all my drowsy powers.

I yield my powers to thy command,
To thee I consecrate my days;
Perpetual blessings from thine hand
Demand perpetual songs of praise.

—from The Psalms & Hymns of Isaac Watts. Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book I: Collected from the Holy Scriptures (Soli Deo Gloria, 1997).

12  . . . devoted to prayer

—Romans 12

Prayer takes for granted that God is full, and we are empty; that He is infinitely full, and we unspeakably empty. I do not say infinitely empty, because God only is infinite. The creature is finite, alike in evil and in good. Time emptiness or evil of any creature, or a whole universe of creatures, can never be infinite. Else what would become of us? Infinitude belongs to Godhead; finitude to creature hood. And here is the first ray of hope to us. Our poverty and want must ever be a mere nothing in comparison with the fullness of Him who filleth all in all. We are sometimes alarmed at the thought of His greatness. Foolish alarm! Were He not so great, so full, so infinite, what would become of us?

Prayer takes for granted that there is a connection between this fullness and our emptiness. The fullness is not inaccessible. It is not too high for us to reach, or for it to stoop. It is not too great for us, nor too distant, so as to be incommunicable. There is a connection, and it has been established by God himself; it is a divine medium of communication: “Ask, and ye shall receive.” It is as righteous as it is divine.

Prayer takes for granted that we are entitled to use this channel, this medium; and that, in using it, there will be a sure inflow of the fullness into us. “Every one that asketh receiveth.” It is men, not angels, who are invited to use this medium. It is to sinners that the gate is thrown open; for them is the access provided. Free, yet righteous access for unrighteous men. God’s love has made it free; the blood of His Son hath made it righteous.

It takes for granted God’s willingness to receive every applicant. His willingness is like His fullness, infinite. “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” applies to prayer; but still more does John 4:10, “If thou knewest the gift of God, thou wouldest have asked, and He would have given.” He makes no exceptions, He does not bid the sinner qualify himself, or ascertain his election, or get up some preliminary preparation, or make sure of the quantity or quality of his faith; He throws open wide His gate and His throne to any applicant, the unworthiest of the human race. His willingness to receive each coming one is infinite. Prayer is not meant to create or produce willingness; to move the heart of an unwilling God. It assumes this willingness, and acts upon it. It is not “tentative”; it does not go in order to make an experiment on God’s willingness. To “experiment” upon it is in reality to deny it; and to act upon such an experimenting principle is to deal with an unknown God.

Prayer takes for granted expectation on our part. This is in a measure implied in the willingness of God; but it needs special notice; for it is that to which Paul referred when he wrote “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Length will not do; nor repetition; nor regularity; no, not even earnestness; nay, earnestness is often the mere expression of unbelief, and the indication of a secret feeling on our part that God is not wholly willing, but requires our earnestness to make Him so. If, then, we examine our prayers, and strip them of all that is not prayer, how little remains? Take away the vain words,—the mere meditative parts; the mere expression of solemn feeling; the mere sentimentalism; the mere utterance of petitions, because urged by conscience and a sense of duty; the requests not accompanied with expectation,—and how little remains in the best of our prayers! What multitudes of prayers are ascending on this day. How much of these will God recognize as prayer? What a small residuum would remain if divested of all prayerless accessories. I cannot compare it to the amount of grain when the chaff is winnowed away, nor of gold when the dross is purged off; but to the tiny gem or little crystal which you pick out of some great rock, after breaking it in pieces, and sifting its endless fragments.

Let us mark such things as the following in reference to this kind of prayer:

1. The irksomeness of non-expecting prayer. Sometimes there may be such an amount of natural feeling as may make what is called “devotion” pleasant. But in the long run it becomes irksome, if not accompanied with expectation, sure expectation. It is expectation only that can produce and keep up truly devotional feeling; expectation founded on God’s infinite willingness to give, and on His promises to the applicant.

2. Time uselessness of non-expecting prayer. It bears no fruit; it brings no answer; it draws down no blessing. It is expectation that honours God, and that God will honour. The answer always runs ‘in this form, “According to thy faith be it unto thee.” It is non-expectation that, more than anything else, ruins and nullifies prayer.

3. The sinfulness of non-expecting prayer. The utterance of petitions is nothing to God; it does not recommend the petitioner. Many seem to think so; and to suppose there is some secret virtue or influence, if not merit, in all prayer, however unbelieving. It is not so; nay, there is guilt, deep guilt, in every unbelieving petition; for thus God is dishonoured, His willingness is denied, His Son is set aside, His Spirit is grieved, and He is addressed both as an hard master and an unknown God. Oh the guilt involved in the religion of religious men; men whose prayers are as regular as the rising or setting sun!

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Hymn LX.
Zion, or the city of God. Isaiah xxxiii. 27, 28.
John Newton (1725–1807)

Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God!
He, whose word cannot be broken,
Form’d thee for his own abode:
On the rock of ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

See! the streams of living waters
Springing from eternal love;
Well supply thy sons and daughters,
And all fear of want remove:
Who can faint while such a river
Ever flows their thirst t’ assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the giver,
Never fails from age to age.

Round each habitation hov’ring
See the cloud and fire appear!
For a glory and a cov’ring,
Showing that the Lord is near:
Thus deriving from their banner
Light by night and shade by day;
Safe they feed upon the Manna
Which he gives them when they pray.

Blest inhabitants of Zion,
Wash’d in the Redeemer’s blood!
Jesus, whom their souls rely on,
Makes them kings and priests to God:
’Tis his love his people raises
Over self to reign as kings
And as priests, his solemn praises
Each for a thank–off’ring brings.

Savior, if of Zion’s city
I thro’ grace a member am;
Let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in thy name
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure,
None but Zion’s children know.

—Olney Hymns. Book I: On select Passages of Scripture.

14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

—Romans 13

Often throughout Scripture is the figure of clothing or putting on, used, both in reference to good and evil. It is man who first tries the thing with his fig leaves; but he fails. Then God steps in and clothes man with skins. After this the figurative use of clothing is very frequent. Judges 6:34, “The Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon” (so it is in the Hebrew); 2 Chronicles 6:4’, “Let thy priests be clothed with salvation”; Job 7:5, “My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of the dust”; Job 29:14, “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me”; Psalm 35:26, “Let them be clothed with shame”; Psalm 93:1, “The Lord is clothed with majesty, the Lord is clothed with strength”; Psalm 132:9, “Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness”; Isaiah 61:10, “He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation”; Isaiah 59:17, “He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing’, and was clad with zeal as a cloak”; Isaiah 52:1, “Put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem”; Luke 15:22, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him”; Romans 13:12, “Let us put on the armor of light”; 1 Corinthians 15:53, “This corruptible must put on incorruption”; Ephesians 4:24, “That ye put on the new man”; Ephesians 6:2, “Put on the whole armor of God”; Colossians 3:52, “Put on bowels of mercies”; Colossians 3:14, “Put on charity.” These passages shew us the use of the figure in Scripture. Something in addition to what we had before, or to what we possess in ourselves, is supposed to be taken on as a garment; something which makes us to appear and to act differently from what we did before; something suited to a peculiar office, or service, or action. The king puts on his royal robe, the priest the priestly robe, the captain his military robe; the robe thus, as it were, altering for a season the individual, and investing him with another character, or office. Clothing is not merely to cover or conceal uncomeliness and shame, but to beautify; to give weight and dignity to our person and our actings; to represent an office.

I. What this is that is put on. It is Christ himself that we put on; not one thing merely, such as righteousness, but everything which makes us comely and acceptable to God. Christ himself is here described as a robe. The figure is not of His giving us a robe, but of His being that robe. It is Himself as our robe, that we are to put on. “As many of you as are baptized unto Christ, have put on Christ.” “We are complete in Him.” He covers us so that no part of our former selves is seen. In looking at us, God sees not us, but Christ himself; and He treats us according to what He sees in Him; He blesses us according to the completeness which we possess in Him; He will recompense us hereafter according to the worthiness and perfection which belong to Him. Christ’s person represents ours before God as the high priest represented Israel. His work is the substitute for us, and for all work of ours in the matter of acceptance, so that we get according to what He did on earth, and not according to what we do. His righteousness comes in room of ours, so that it is on His righteousness, and not on ours, that the great questions turn in regard to which we deal with God; for He is the end of the law for righteousness. His whole life comes in place of ours, His sufferings in place of ours, His death in place of ours; and in regard to every one of our transactions with God, we may plead what He is, not what we are; what He did and suffered, not what we do or suffer. It is not an infusion or transfusion into us of His goodness or perfection. It is the legal reckoning of these to us by God in all His dealings with us, so that in every transaction between us and God, the question is not, what we deserve, but what Christ deserves. Thus we put on Christ, and are “found in Him”; treated as if He and we were identical or interchangeable. It is a whole Christ whom we put on; it is with a whole Christ that God deals in dealing with us.

II. How this putting on is done. The link by which we become personally connected with Christ is our own believing. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” We put on Christ simply in believing. Our reception of the Father’s testimony to the work and person of Christ is the “putting on.” There is no other. Full and large is that testimony. It is the declaration of what the Father sees Christ to be; and whoever comes to be of one mind with Him in regard to this Son of whom He testifies, is regarded by Him as clothed with Christ. There is nothing mystical about this putting on, nothing unintelligible, nothing laborious. Men may dislike or reject the idea that a man is saved by believing the divine testimony,—that a man puts on Christ by believing what God says about Him,—but Scripture leaves us in no doubt at all. “Believe,” and straightway thou art clothed with Christ. He covers thee from head to foot. Not according to thy works, or prayers, or feelings, or convictions, but according to the simplicity of thy faith,—thy acceptance of the Father’s testimony to the person and work, the death, and burial, and resurrection of His only begotten Son,—thou art, from head to foot, clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ; and in the great day of the Lord thou shalt be “found in Him.”

III. What is the effect? There are two aspects or sides which are to be regarded in this: (1.) God’s side; (2.) the believer’s.

(1.) God’s side. God looks at us and sees us as if we were His own Son. He sees not our deformity and imperfection, but His beauty and perfection; not our sin, but His righteousness; not our unworthiness, but His worthiness. “Thou art all fair,” He says; “there is no spot in thee.” He loves us accordingly, and deals with us accordingly.

(2.) Our side. (1.) Our consciences are completely satisfied. Not only have we the blood to purge the guilt, but we have the perfection to cover all imperfection, so that we feel that God “sees no iniquity in Jacob, and no transgression in Israel.” (2.) Our bands are completely loosed. The certainty of possessing God’s favor in such surpassing measure gives the fullest liberty. (3.) Our joy overflows. Such love! Such favor! Such nearness! Such dignity! Such glory! Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us! “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me maybe in them.” (4.) Our motives to a holy life are increased. What manner of persons ought we to be who are so regarded by God, so beloved of Him! (5.) Our zeal is quickened. Loved with such a love, and treated in so divine a way, what is there that we are not willing to do for Him?

Our whole life is to be a daily putting on of Christ. Put on, put on! And regarding the sinner He says, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him.”

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Petitionary Hymns
Poem XXXV. Refuge in the Righteousness of Christ.
Augustus Toplady (1740–1778)

From thy supreme tribunal, Lord,
Where justice sits severe,
I to thy mercy seat appeal,
And beg forgiveness there.

Tho’ I have sinn’d before the throne,
My advocate I see:
Jesus, be thou my Judge, and let
My sentence come from thee.

Lo, weary to thy cross I fly,
There let me shelter find:
Lord, when thou call’st thy ransom’d home,
leave me not behind!

I joyfully embrace thy love
To fallen man reveal’d;
My hope of glory, dearest Lord,
On thee alone I build.

The law was satisfy’d by him
Who flesh for me was made:
Its penalty he underwent,
Its precepts he obey’d.

Desert and all self-righteousness
I utterly forego;
My robe of everlasting bliss,
My wedding garment thou!

The spotless Saviour liv’d for me,
And dy’d upon the Mount:
Th’ obedience of his life and death
Is plac’d to my account.

Canst thou forget that awful hour,
That sad, tremendous scene,
When thy dear blood on Calvary
Flow’d out at ev’ry vein ?

No, Saviour, no; thy wounds are fresh,
Ev’n now they intercede;
Still, in effect, for guilty man
Incessantly they bleed.

Thine ears of mercy still attend
A contrite sinner’s cries,
A broken heart, that groans for God,
Thou never wilt despise.

Love incomprehensible,
That made thee bleed for me!
The Judge of all hath suffer’d death
To set his prisoner free!

—The Complete Works of Augustus Toplady (Sprinkle Publications, 1987).

13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

—Romans 15

It will be good to take this apostolic prayer to pieces, and mark each separate part and truth.

I. The hope. It is of the things hoped for that the apostle is speaking. It is not to “hope,” or to “a hope,” but to “the hope,” that he is pointing. It is not that thing called “hope,” as springing up in our breasts, that he would have us dwell upon; it is the glory to be revealed, the hope which is laid up for us in heaven. This is the bright star on which he fixes our eye. The inheritance, the kingdom, the glory, the new heavens and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness; these make up what the apostle announces as the church’s hope, her one resplendent hope, which is to be realized when her Lord appears. This is the hope that fills up her future, and sheds brightness on her present, even amid all her “heaviness through manifold temptations.”

II. The God of the hope. Of that hope He is the beginning, the middle, and the end; the center and the circumference; its root, and stem, and branches; its seed, its blossom, and its fruit. There is not one of these “things hoped for” but is to be traced to Him as its sole fountain head. Hence its peculiar blessedness and glory; hence also the security which we have for its realization when the fullness of the time is come. That hope cannot fail us, because the God of the hope is faithful and true. He will most surely introduce us into its glory; or rather, He will make that glory rise on us like the glory of the rising sun.

III. Fill you with all joy and peace. There is joy; ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory”; but it is not of earth. It comes down from heaven. There is peace; the peace which passeth all understanding; but its fountain is above. It is God who gives these; and He does so as “the God of the hope.” The author of the hope is the provider of the joy and the peace; so that we may be sure these will be like Himself, and like the hope. They will be like the hope, and the hope will be like them; they the earnest of the hope; and the hope their consummation and fullness. This God of the hope not only gives the joy and peace, but He fills us with them; nay, He fills us with all joy and peace, leaving out no part of the joy and the peace, and leaving no part of us unfilled! Blessed and glorious petition, “the God of the hope fill you with all joy and peace”!

IV. In believing. This joy and peace, though heavenly in their origin and nature, were not miraculous. They did not gush up into the soul like water springing from the sand by some supernatural touch. They found their way into the soul by a very natural, very simple, but very effectual channel,—the belief of God’s good hews about His only begotten Son. They were not the reward of believing; they were not purchased by believing nor did they come in after believing: they were obtained in believing. Faith did nothing but hand in its report to the soul. That report was both glad and true. As soon then as the report thus found its way in, all was changed. The joy and the peace which that report contained filled the soul. And as it was thus that the joy and peace came in, so it is thus that they continue in. They began in believing, and they are maintained in precisely the same way; so that if at any time they are interrupted, we must have recourse to the same report which gladdened us at first, and which is still as sufficient to gladden us again. The thing that gladden us was the thing which we believed. Not our way of believing it; not the quality nor the quantity of our faith; but simply the thing believed the glad tidings of great joy concerning Him who died, and was buried, and rose again. If the thing believed proves ineffectual to gladden, no considerations as to the satisfactory nature or composition of our own faith will prove sufficient. The attempt to believe in our own faith instead of believing in Christ must be abortive both in itself and in its results; and the incessant efforts of some to get up a faith worthy of being believed in, and capable of recommending them to God, are the dictate and the development of as hateful a self-righteousness as was ever exhibited by ancient Pharisee or modern Romanist. No. When the God of the hope fills us with all joy and peace, He does so by presenting us with objects full of joy and peace, so that, in believing, we are filled with the blessedness which they contain.

V. That ye may abound in the hope. The hope not only fills, but overflows, as the word “abound” might be rendered. It comes in and lights up the soul with its heavenly brightness; but it does more. It is so glorious and so boundless that the soul cannot contain it. We fix our eye on it; and as we gaze it expands, and enlarges, and intensifies. It grows brighter, and more real, and more excellent as we continue to dwell upon it. Our faith becomes more and more the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

VI. Through the power of the Holy Ghost. He comes in and dwells in us; thus working in us from within, not from without. He comes in as the Spirit of power, and love, and of a sound mind. He comes in as the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of faith, the Spirit of joy and peace, the Spirit of Christ. He comes in as “the seal” by which we are sealed unto the day of redemption; God’s own seal which stamps us as God’s property. He comes in as the witness, witnessing with our spirits that we are the sons of God. He comes in as the earnest of the inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. He comes in, not in feebleness, but in power; in almighty power, to work a work in us and for us, which but for Him must remain unaccomplished forever.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Ministers a Sweet Savor, Whether of Life or Death
Philip Doddridge (1702–1751)

Praise to the Lord on high, who spreads his triumphs wide!

While Jesus’ fragrant name is breathed on every side.

Balmy and rich, the odors rise,

And fill the earth, and reach the skies.

Ten thousand dying souls, its influence feel and live;

Sweeter than vital air, the incense they receive:

They breathe anew and rise and sing

Jesus the Lord, the conquering King.

But sinners scorn the grace that brings salvation nigh;

They turn their face away, and faint, and fall, and die.

So sad a doom, ye saints, deplore,

For, Oh, they fall to rise no more.

Yet, wise and mighty God, shall all thy servants be,

In those who live or die, A savour sweet to thee;

Supremely bright, Thy grace shall shine,

Guarded with flames of wrath divine.

—Worthy Is the Lamb (Soli Deo Gloria, 2004).

20  The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

—Romans 16

Let us note here,

I. Satan’s overthrow. The whole history of the world is interwoven with the doings of him whom Scripture calls “the serpent” (2 Corinthians 11:3); “the old serpent” (Revelation 12:9); the God of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4); “the great dragon” (Revelation 12:9); “the wicked one” (Matthew 13:19, 1 John 5:18) ; “the devil” (Matthew 4:8); “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2); “the accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10); “the adversary” (1 Peter 5:8). He is a living person,—originally connected with heaven, now with earth, once associated with angels, now with men, full of malice, a murderer and a liar, a deceiver. His dealings first with Eve, and then with Christ, are the two great specimens of his nature, his tactics, and his aims. The first promise announced a battle between him and the seed of the woman. This battle has been going on without intermission, between him and Christ, and between him and the members of Christ’s body. With them it is warfare, with the rest of mankind it is friendship. The warfare has been fierce as well as long, open as well as secret, outward as well as inward. In all his assaults and stratagems he has to a certain extents succeeded, but always in the end been baffled. It is to this ultimate baffling or bruising that the apostle here alludes. In four ways has this final bruising been manifested, or is to be manifested:

(1.) In Christ Himself. He seemed for a while to conquer; he succeeded in stirring up men against Him; Judas to betray Him, and His disciples to forsake Him. He specially seemed to triumph over Him on the cross. There He bruised his heel. But that was the means and commencement of his defeat. His bruising began at the cross. There he received his deadly wound, his death stroke, which is to be completed at His second coming. Christ’s personal victory over Satan by Himself and for Himself is yet to be manifested.

(2.) In the Church. Satan has bruised the church’s heel, but the church is yet to bruise his head. Each age of the church has shewn this double process more or less; but the last age is to shew it fully; when Christ comes to deliver her from her oppressor forever.

(3.) In each saint. We wrestle with principalities and powers. Each of us has a daily battle with Satan. In this we are often worsted, yet in the end we overcome. We resist, and he flees from us. We pursue, and the God of peace enables us to overtake him and to bruise him under our feet.

(4.) In the world. He is prince of this world, and he has long exercised dominion therein. But the day is coming when he will be bound with the great chain and cast into the bottomless pit,—and after that into the lake of fire. That shall be his final bruising and binding; that shall be earth’s deliverance from his power,—the end of the reign of evil, and the beginning of the reign of good and righteousness.

II. The saint’s deliverance. We have briefly alluded to this already; but let us notice still further the peculiar expression used in reference to this. It is evidently of individual Christians that He is speaking when He says, the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. (1.) He shall bruise, that is crush, grind to powder, overwhelm. (2.) Satan, as the adversary, as the tempter, as the inflicter of pain, and him who has the power of death,—not merely his head, but himself. (3.) Under your feet. He shall place your feet upon his head and neck, as in the case of a conquered foe,—as if you had won the whole battle yourself, and triumphed over the enemy. (4.) Shortly. It will not be a long warfare in any sense. A short work will God make of this. Thus shall the saint be delivered; thus shall he conquer; thus shall he triumph; thus shall all his enemies be put under his feet. It will not be long! Hold fast, O saint; hold out! Resist, contend, use the whole armor, smite with the sword of the Spirit; for no other weapon will avail in the conflict with such a foe. Fight! For God is on your side.

III. The victory of the God of peace. It is as the God of peace that He wins the victory for us, and bruises Satan tinder our feet. It is as the bruised one that He bruises. He whom Satan smote, is He who smites Satan. The God of peace has made peace; and having made peace by the blood of His cross, He proceeds to destroy all that had once marred the peace,—all His enemies and ours,—giving us complete victory and triumph. It is on the basis of the reconciling blood, the peace-giving work on the cross, that the operations against Satan are carried on. It is under the banner of the God of peace that we fight. He is our captain, and the peace which He has made is that which secures the victory to us. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb,—the blood that has made our peace. It is the righteous peace made on the cross that makes it a righteous thing in God to bruise Satan under our feet; for, to bruise (or punish) him is one thing, and to do so under our feet is another. It is one thing to triumph over him, and another to make us triumph over him,—to make us conquerors,—more than conquerors,—to make us sharers of the honour and the spoils of victory; for with us He divides the spoil. In fighting for us and with us, God has respect to this blood made and blood bought peace. We in maintaining the fight have our eye constantly on it. We fight and conquer as men who know the God of peace, having believed His testimony to the work which has produced the peace. We fight and conquer as men who have obtained the peace, and by that peace are nerved and animated for the conflict, as men who know that God is with us. The peace within, and the consciousness of friendship with God, emboldens us and rouses us—makes us brave and invincible.

What consolation, too, in that word “shortly.” It will not be long. Take the word as referring to the saints simply, or to the church, the victory is near. Behold I come quickly. Fight on. Resist the devil. Wrestle with the principalities and powers.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

Christ Our Peace.
Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

I thought upon my sins, and I was sad,
My soul was troubled sore and filled with pain;
But then I thought on Jesus, and was glad,
My heavy grief was turned to joy again.

I thought upon the law, the fiery law,
Holy, and just, and good in its decree;
I looked to Jesus, and in Him I saw
That law fulfilled, its curse endured for me.

I thought I saw an angry, frowning God,
Sitting as Judge upon the great white throne;
My soul was overwhelmed; then Jesus showed
His gracious face, and all my dread was gone.

I saw my sad estate, condemned to die,
Then terror seized my heart, and dark despair;
But when to Calvary I turned my eye,
I saw the cross, and read forgiveness there.

I saw that I was lost, far gone astray,
No hope of safe return there seemed to be;
But then I heard that Jesus was the way,
A new and living way prepared for me.

Then in that way, so free, so safe, so sure,
Sprinkled all o’er with reconciling blood,
Will I abide, and never wander more,
Walking along in fellowship with God.

—Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope, First Series (James Nisbet & Co., 1878).

25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, 26 but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; 27 to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.

—Romans 16

What a doxology! What a burst of praise! Full of divine melody; full of grace and truth! Glory to God in the highest is here, yet also peace on earth, and goodwill to man. The great Jehovah, the wise, the mighty, the good, the loving God, is the theme.

Let us look at the contents of this glorious hymn of praise, this rapturous hallelujah of a redeemed man, this utterance of marvelous song.

I. The Stablisher. He is the Creator; it was He who spake and it was done, who commanded and it stood fast; who laid the foundation of earth and heaven.

(1.) He is the mighty God. He is “of power” (literally, “able”) to stablish you. He is the Lord God Almighty, infinite in might, whose is the “strength,” and the “power,” and the “dominion,” and the “greatness,” and the “majesty” (1 Chronicles 29:2; Revelation 4:2). Let us notice the different connections in which this power is introduced in Scripture: (1.) “God is able of these stones to raise up children” (Matthew 3:9); (2.) “Thou canst (art able to) make me clean” (Matthew 8:2); (3.) “Unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above,” &c. (Ephesians 3:20); (4.) “He is able to subdue all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:21); (5.) “He is able to succor them that are tempted” (Hebrew 2:18); (6.) “He is able to save to the uttermost” (Hebrew 7:25); (7.) “To Him that is able keep you from falling” (Jude 24); (8.) “To Him that is of power to stablish you” (Roman 16:25). What comfort to the feeble, and weary, and Satan-tempted, in this truth! He who strengthens and stablishes us is the mighty God.

(2.) The fountainhead of the mystery of hidden wisdom. The mystery (or secret) now revealed in Christ and His cross (that “God so loved the world,” &c., John 3:16), which had been kept secret (hidden) in “the eternal ages,” was God’s everlasting purpose concerning His own, His saints, His chosen ones, His church of all ages. It is out of this purpose and this Purposer that our establishment flows. This eternal Purposer, the birthplace and well head of all being, and truth, and blessedness, is He who worketh in us according to the good pleasure of His will. He had sketched His great secret, His purpose of grace, in the prophets, giving us in them the outline and shadow of the good things to come; but not till the Word was made flesh, and the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, had declared Him, was the glorious revelation made.

(3.) He is the everlasting God. “From everlasting to everlasting thou art God” (Psalm 90:1). He is “the King eternal, immortal, and invisible” (1 Timothy 1:17); “with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning” (James 1:17). It is not with mortality, and finitude, and change, and corruption that we have to do, but with the immortal, the infinite, the unchangeable, the incorruptible. He who stablishes us is “the everlasting God.”

(4.) He is the God only wise. Wisdom is His in its widest, highest sense; wisdom without weakness, or one sidedness, or imperfection. The perfection of wisdom is His. The God only wise is His name.

Such is our Stablisher! Can we fear or be discouraged? Shall our weakness, or frailty, or the number of our foes appal us? Greater is He that is for us than all that are against us, without or within! Let us stand fast, and not be moved, or shaken, or terrified.

II. The stablishing. The word expresses steadfastness, fixture, and strength (see Luke 9:51; Romans 1:2; 1 Thessalonians 3:2,13; 2 Thessalonians 2:17, 3:3; James 5:8;1 Peter 5:10). It assumes that on our part there is weakness, wavering, changeableness; that there is peril for us on every hand from snares and assaults, from wiles and enmity, and that we are constantly liable to be uprooted and overthrown. We are without strength; compassed about with infirmities; apt to be carried about with every wind of doctrine; ready to be moved from the faith, or made to err from ways of uprightness. The process of stablishing is what we need so much; it is more than being “kept from falling,” and we require both. While this stablishing, in one sense, comes directly from the eternal Stablisher, in another, it comes through present means and influences, such as the gospel (“my gospel” [10]), and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, and the revelation of the mystery. Through means of these, God establishes us, by the power of the Holy Ghost, working in us according to His mighty power. The gospel (1) says to us, “Be steadfast”;

(2) it shews us what steadfastness is; (3) it supplies us with the means of steadfastness. In clasping that gospel, we are holding that which alone can keep us from being moved. Let us lean on the cross; let us grasp it as the shipwrecked sailor grasps the life buoy, or is lashed to the mast to prevent his being washed overboard. The cross is thus everything for steadfastness. It stands firm, and it keeps firm all who keep hold of it. It is our prop; our resting place; our foundation; our anchor; our strong tower. The true stablishing (whether in faith, or love, or hope, or truth, or holiness) goes on only here. Apart from it, or away from it, all is instability, and feebleness, and destruction.

III. The stablished. These are, first of all, the saints at Rome, “called,” “beloved of God,” whose “faith was spoken of throughout the whole world.” They needed “stablishing,” though apostles were their pastors and teachers; not once, but all through; day by day; they needed to be “rooted and grounded in love”; to be “made perfect, stablished, strengthened, settled.” And if these noble Roman Christians needed stablishing (men of faith and love, beyond us!), how much more we! For is not the, church of God in these last days far from steadfast? Is she not an unanchored, uncompassed, unballasted vessel, carried about with every wind of doctrine or speculation, departing from old beliefs as obsolete and fossile; rushing after what is new and fascinating; in love with change, and “progress,” and “development,” and “breadth,” and liberality,” according to modern phraseology proudly disdainful of what she calls “bigotry,” and intolerance,” and “stereotyping,” and old-fashioned dogmas and theologies. Surely the church of the last days needs stablishing even more than the church of the first age; there are so many half-and-half disciples now, the mixed multitude that led Israel astray. Let each believing man give heed to this, lest he fall from his steadfastness. Be strong in the Lord; be steadfast and immoveable; hold fast that which thou hast received.

This peculiar doxology, at the close of such an epistle, connecting such a song of praise with the steadfastness of the saints of God, is very striking, and fraught with deep lessons to us. The glory of the God only mighty, and eternal, and wise, is connected with our being stablished; and the process of stablishing us depends on His being what He is here represented to be. Let us feel that we have much to do with Him as the God of power, and wisdom, and eternity.

—Horatius Bonar, Light & Truth: Bible Thoughts & Themes

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

—Romans 12:1–3

What does the living sacrifice look like? Paul first describes it in terms of nonconformity. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world.” Here is the point at which many Christians have gone astray. It is clear that we are to be nonconformists. But it is difficult to understand precisely what kind of nonconformity is called for. Nonconformity is a tricky matter and can easily be reduced to superficiality.

It is a tragedy that the matter of nonconformity has been treated by Christians at a shallow level. The simplistic way of not conforming is to see what is in style in our culture and then do the opposite. If short hair is in vogue, the nonconformist wears long hair. If going to movies is popular, then Christians avoid movies as “worldly.” The extreme case of this may be seen in groups that refuse to wear buttons or use electricity because such things too are worldly.

A superficial style of nonconformity is the classical pharisaical trap. The kingdom of God is not about buttons, movies, or dancing. The concern of God is not focused on what we eat or what we drink. The call of nonconformity is a call to a deeper level of righteousness that goes beyond externals. When piety is defined exclusively in terms of externals, the whole point of the apostle’s teaching has been lost. Somehow we have failed to hear Jesus’ words that it is not what goes into a man’s mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of his mouth. We still want to make the kingdom a matter of eating and drinking.

Why are such distortions rampant in Christian circles? The only answer I can give is sin. Our marks of piety can actually be evidences of impiety. When we major in minors and blow insignificant trifles out of proportion, we imitate the Pharisees. When we make dancing and movies the test of spirituality, we are guilty of substituting a cheap morality for a genuine one. We do these things to obscure the deeper issues of righteousness. Anyone can avoid dancing or going to movies. These require no great effort of moral courage. What is difficult is to control the tongue, to act with integrity, to reveal the fruit of the Spirit.

I have never heard a sermon on coveting. I have heard plenty of sermons about the evils of whiskey, but none on the evils of covetousness. Strange. To be sure, the Bible declares that drunkenness is sin, but drunkenness never made the top ten. A true nonconformist is a person who stops coveting; he stops gossiping; he stops slandering; he stops hating and feeling bitter; he starts to practice the fruit of the Spirit.

—R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Tyndale, 1985), 207–208.