Hebrews 9:22

Without shedding of blood is no remission

No remission without blood

I. ESTABLISH THE FACT.

1. The observances of the ceremonial law show that men were saved by blood under the Mosaic dispensation.

2. The same way of salvation still obtains under the gospel. The typical sacrifices are indeed superseded by the one sacrifice of Christ. But it is through His sacrifice, and through it alone, that any man is saved.

(1) This is capable of direct proof from Scripture (1Sa 2:17; 1 Samuel 2:25; Hebrews 10:26).

(2) It may be yet further proved by arguments, which, though of an indirect nature, are not the less satisfactory than the foregoing, a. If salvation be not by blood the whole Mosaic ritual was absurd, b. If salvation be not by blood, the prophets grossly misrepresented their Messiah (Isaiah 53:1.; Daniel 9:24; Daniel 9:26; Zechariah 13:1; John 1:29).

3. If salvation be not by blood, the declarations of the apostles, yea, and of Christ Himself, are fax more likely to mislead than to instruct the world. Christ expressly told His disciples that His “blood was shed for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28). And the apostles uniformly declare that God purchased the Church with His own blood (Acts 20:28); that our reconciliation to God (Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:20), and our justification before Him (Romans 5:9), together with our complete redemption (Ephesians 1:7; Revelation 5:9), are by blood, even by the blood of Christ, that spotless Lamb (1 Peter 1:19).

II. IMPROVEMENT.

1. The evil of sin.

2. The folly of self-righteousness.

3. The encouragement which the gospel affords to sinners.

4. The wonderful love of Christ. (Theological Sketch-Book.)

On the atonement

I. The mercy of God, however dispensed to sinners, ARISES SOLELY FROM THE BENIGNITY OF HIS OWN NATURE. It is not to be considered as moved and excited by the means which they must use to obtain it. These are only the channel of its communication.

II. GOD HAVING PROVIDED A PARTICULAR WAY IN WHICH HE WILL MANIFEST HIS GRACE, THAT WAY DERIVES ITS EFFICACY FROM HIS APPOINTMENT.

III. We may remark, THAT THE METHOD IN WHICH GOD DISPENSES HIS MERCY DOES NOT SUPERSEDE THE NECESSITY OF REPENTANCE.

IV. ON THE OTHER HAND, WE MUST ALSO OBSERVE, THAT OUR REPENTANCE DOES NOT SUPERSEDE THE NECESSITY OF FAITH.

V. I PRESUME NOT EVEN TO ATTEMPT ANY EXPLANATION OF THE REASONS WHICH INDUCED THE ALMIGHTY TO CHOOSE THIS PARTICULAR MODE FOR THE DISPENSATION OF HIS MERCY TO SINNERS. It becomes us rather humbly to acknowledge our ignorance, and adore the depth both of the wisdom and goodness of God. He has ordained it, and let us be satisfied and thankful. We are permitted, however, to discover some reasons which prove the propriety of such a mode of dispensing mercy. It manifests exceedingly the grace of God, by showing that our salvation is wholly owing to it. Boasting is thus entirely excluded. And who can say whether it may not be suited to the Divine purity and justice, to confer salvation on man, only by subjecting him to the deepest humiliation, by constraining him to feel his own entire inability to save himself, and thus compelling him to ascribe his salvation solely to the Divine mercy? (J. Venn, M. A.)

The atonement

I. ITS NECESSITY arises

1. From man’s sin, and its necessary consequences.

2. Man’s utter incapability to atone for himself.

3. The demands of the law cannot be relaxed with honour to the lawgiver.

II. THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. The person atoning must

1. Be of superior dignity to the persons for whom the atonement is made.

2. He must possess the same nature as the offender.

3. He must have a right to dispose of his own life, and freely offer himself to this end.

4. He must approve of the law, and recognise the justice of its claim.

5. He must be free from all charges of personal guilt.

6. He must answer all the demands of the law, and endure its curse.

III. THE EFFECTS OF THE ATONEMENT.

1. All the perfections of Jehovah have been illustriously displayed.

2. The atonement leaves the impenitent without excuse.

3. The atonement has rendered man’s salvation possible.

Application:

1. Let the subject of the atonement be Scripturally investigated, that it may be rightly understood.

2. Let it be cordially received, by a hearty faith (Romans 10:9).

3. Let a Scriptural knowledge, and a cordial reception of it, fill the soul with hope and joy.

4. Let not the dying sinner reject the only way of salvation. (J. Burns, D. D.)

On the atonement

I. THE FACT OF HUMAN GUILT, AND MAN’S NEED OF MERCY. Remission signifies the forgiveness of a debt, or the withdrawal of the sentence of punishment, which has been pronounced upon a convicted offender.

II. SIN IS REMISSABLE. It may be pardoned. Forgiveness is attainable. The guilt of sin can be cancelled, and the sentence of condemnation may be repealed.

1. Upon this ground the sacrifices of the law were instituted. Every victim that bled, every sacrifice of blood upon the altar of the tabernacle and temple, was a conclusive testimony to the pardoning grace of God.

2. The language of Scripture is quite decisive on this great question. It tells us that with the Lord there is mercy--that He is ready to forgive--slow to anger--plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Him,

3. Scripture facts prove the doctrine which our text includes. If there were no collateral proof, the mission of Christ into the world as the Prophet and Priest of the Church would be quite enough. He came to save sinners.

4. We may also look at examples. Sin had been remitted, or forgiven. Paul says, “I obtained mercy.” The penitent thief was pardoned and taken to paradise the same day,

III. WHILE SIN MAY BE PARDONED IT IS ONLY THROUGH THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD. Some impurities might, under the law, be removed by water and fire, but the stain of sin could be removed only by blood. It is on this principle that the plan of salvation by the death of Christ is placed, and on this that God, in fact, bestows remission of sins. (J. E. Everitt.)

Remission of sins by substitution

I. REMISSION OF SINS IS NECESSARY FOR THE RECONCILIATION OF MAN WITH GOD. It is the first necessity. Till sin is totally removed there can be no agreement between God, the Holy One, and man, His creature. Sin first separated them, and the alienation has grown with every generation where sin has reigned. And so long as sin is present, they must remain separate, both in purpose and action. You will see then, further, it is not a question of only forgiveness. God, in His sovereign mercy, might forgive the sin of our life--He does forgive it--but that does not take the sin away. The heart is still a sinful heart; it has forfeited its rights, and though God forgives, these rights are not restored. If, then, we are at any time to be reconciled with God, and be the recipients of His favour, it must be on the one condition that our consciences are purged from evil. Sin in its action will be removed only as sin in its source is taken away; and only as that is done can the soul have peace with God, or can God return to the soul. When sin is taken right away, there remains no barrier between the creature and his God. The soul, desiring to do right, loving the truth, desires to do what God would have it. The will of the creature, however feeble its action may be, is one with the will of God. Nothing remains, therefore, to prevent Him rendering the help of His favour and strength. And this, we are told, He will do.

II. REMISSION OF SINS IS ONLY POSSIBLE BY SUBSTITUTION; THAT IS, ONE LIFE PAYING PENALTY FOR ANOTHER LIFE. This is the declaration of the sacrifices and services of the temple. It is not our province to explain, it is simply our duty to describe and tell, as well as we are able, God’s plan for removing sin away from us, so that we might receive His Divine gifts. The animal thus sacrificed was the substitution for the life of the offerer. He died, as it were, for sin, in the beast who had been put into his place. The penalty being thus paid, he was free from sin, and now could stand before God as one who had become reconciled to Him. But of course you will observe, in thus acting, the sinner acknowledges the authority and power of God. He has put aside his own thoughts and purposes, and has done God’s, thus indicating in the very act of sacrifice that there is a change of his heart. This finds its entire fulfilment in Jesus Christ. The fact was shadowed as a principle of the Divine purpose in redemption--without the shedding of blood, the substitution of life for sin, there could be no remission. We may and must look at His death on the Cross as the substitution of His life for the life of each one for whom He died. That death can have no other meaning, and when we put it side by side, as the apostle does here, with the Old Testament teaching, I don’t see how we can doubt God’s intention and method in the death of His Son. God’s purpose is thus revealed. Sin is not simply forgiven, but it is taken away. The soul is cleansed from its guilt; the conscience is cleared. When the time comes for it to stand stripped of the material and mortal nature of the present, in presence of the seen and known Eternal One, it will be purified, and fit in its sympathies, thoughts, and feelings for companionship with the absolutely holy God. Thus freed from sin, it will for ever be pure, no sin ever again finding place in it, because it will be with God and like God.

III. Having stated the principle, WE SAY A WORD AS TO ITS APPLICATION. This substitution appropriated by faith secures our acceptance with God. Jesus died for and in the place of sinners; then are sinners freed from sin? Is there nothing more for us than to eat and drink and go on our way? It is not so. He died for sinners, it is true, but only for sinners who have, so to speak, presented Him to God as their sacrifice. (H. W. Beecher.)

Spiritual blood-shedding

I. SPIRITUAL BLOOD-SHEDDING OR SELF-SACRIFICE IS ESSENTIAL TO DELIVER OUR OWN SOULS FROM SIN.

II. SPIRITUAL BLOOD-SHEDDING IS ESSENTIAL TO DELIVER THE SOULS OF OTHERS FROM SIN.

1. The necessary qualification of a spiritual reformer.

2. The spirit which has governed all genuine reformers.

3. The power of Christ in prosecuting His mission. (Homilist.)

The necessity of atonement

Atonement always supposes a party offending and a party offended. It supposes that the offended holds the offender justly bound to suffer penal consequences as merited by the offence. The question proposed for present discussion regards the necessity of the atonement of Jesus Christ, in order to God’s remitting the sins of men. As a preliminary, we are constrained to protest against the adducing of any facts as bearing upon this question, which belong to the present gracious methods of God’s dealing with the human race. The question is, whether, in order to the adoption of those gracious methods, an atonement was not necessary? The evangelical doctrine of atonement is founded in the independent, essential mercy of God. It originated in His infinite mercy. It was an expedient, devised by boundless wisdom, and furnished by boundless love, to supersede the rigorous execution of justice. The forgiveness of sin essentially depends on the whole character of God, on His moral views and feelings respecting sin, and on the reasons which render its punishment necessary. It is here that we should look for all the obstacles, if there be any, which obstruct the exercise of grace, and oppose the remission of sin, and for all the reasons which render an atonement in behalf of sinful men, with a view to their receiving that blessed benefit, indispensable. Here, then, let us commence the discussion. The doctrine which I propose to illustrate and establish is contained in the following proposition: The great moral reasons which require the punishment of sin render the atonement necessary in order to its forgiveness.

I. I am to show that there are GREAT MORAL REASONS WHICH REQUIRE THAT SIN SHOULD RE PUNISHED.

1. God’s holiness and justice form the first moral reason. This is the “ground pillar and chief buttress” of my argument. If He is a holy and a righteous God, it is impossible that sin should pass unpunished. You ask me what is God’s holiness; what is His rectitude? His holiness is an essential part of His eternal character. It is His immutable disposition toward all points that involve morality. I would say it is His most perfect perception of right and wrong: it is His most perfect approbation of right; it is His most perfect abhorrence of wrong. And His justice is also inherent and essential. It is the disposition of His nature to act, in all worlds, on all occasions, in the most exact conformity to His moral sense. In heaven, earth, or hell, no being shall ever have ground of complaint, that in His treatment of him, God has forgotten His own holiness and justice.

2. I proceed to state a second moral reason, intimately connected with the preceding, why sin should not be permitted to pass unpunished. It is necessary, as the means of leading intelligent beings to reverence and honour God as a Being essentially holy and righteous. We contend that even the benevolence of God demands that sin should not be permitted to pass unpunished. To Him the created universe looks up as the Parent of eternal holiness, order, and well being. These are to be found and enjoyed only in subjection to God, and in perfect, undeviating obedience to His laws. That He should enforce such subjection and obedience by holding the transgressor responsible for his misdeeds, and so administering His government as that sin shall not pass unpunished, is required by the best interests of the created system.

II. THESE MORAL REASONS WINCH REQUIRE THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN, RENDER THE ATONEMENT NECESSARY IN ORDER TO ITS FORGIVENESS. NO substantial reason can be given why a Being infinitely benevolent as well as just, who has been pleased to ordain the redemption of guilty men, should not, when the ends of justice are satisfied, remit their doom. And these ends are most fully secured in the atonement. With an efficacy which to that heart which contemplates it in its just light must prove irresistible, the atonement exhibits God as a Being infinitely holy and righteous, regarding Himself as supremely worthy of the entire homage, love, and obedience of all moral existences, whose rectitude is such that He can give no other laws than those which are founded in eternal and immutable right, can administer no other government but that which is conducted on principles of justice and judgment, can hold no communion with rational beings who are unholy, cannot mark sin but to abhor it, and as the Sovereign Ruler, to manifest towards it His abhorrence, cannot pardon it without bearing testimony, heard with astonishment by heaven, earth, and hell, that it is an endless evil. And what inducements does the atonement hold out to moral agents to esteem, admire, adore, and obey, the Most High and Holy God, and to persevere in this exalted and exalting course? As the attainment of a supreme regard for holiness and an entire detestation of sin must produce the most pure and enduring happiness, what measure could so directly and so powerfully tend to promote and extend the highest happiness of the created system as the atonement? (John De Witt, D. D.)

Atonement by blood

It is asserted by historians that there is not a nation mentioned in history, the blood of whose citizens has not been poured out on its altars as an atonement for their sins, or to propitiate their deities. Even in this nineteenth century, it is said that there is a custom, carefully kept secret by Mussulmen, which shows they believe that “without shedding of blood is no remission of sin.” In time of great trouble and sorrow, when dreading the death of a favourite child, it is their custom to secretly kill a lamb and sacrifice it, crying, “Allah, take the life of this lamb for the life of my child.” The flesh of the lamb is then carefully removed, and given to religious beggars, while the skeleton is buried without breaking a bone. (C. W. Bibb.)

The blood:

The collector of railway tickets did not look to the character or education of the holder of the ticket, but to the ticket itself. In like manner the blood was a token which typically indicated the way they were to be saved. (D. L. Moody.)

The doctrine of blood:

Some people said they did not understand the doctrine of blood. It was very offensive to the natural man. He knew a man to say that whenever he heard a minister speak of the blood in his sermon, he took up his hat and quietly walked out. But just as the bitterest medicine cured, so the doctrine of blood found that man and he was saved. (D. L. Moody.)

Without shedding of blood there is no remission:

An aged Jew said: “I have fasted for seven and twenty hours, praying with all possible earnestness, and trembling too, and after all I feel that my sins have not been atoned for.” No; without shedding of blood there is no remission. “The only plank between the believer and destruction is the blood of the incarnate God.” To make light of the blood, therefore, is to make light of salvation, and miss it for ever. The patterns of things in the heavens

Drama of heaven:

The life of Jesus Christ was a celestial drama which has revealed to mankind the nature of heaven.

1. The heavenly life is spoken of as a transparency. The densest thing we know is the pavement on which we walk. In heaven it is “transparent”; it is a pavement, but you can see through it like glass. You may recollect reading that a celebrated Roman once came before his fellow-citizens for their votes, saying that he Wished there was a window in his breast, so that they might see the purity of his motive and the goodness of his heart. An old Puritan minister, on recording this incident, adds, “Poor creature, were he to have had such a window, he would at once have prayed God to give him a shutter to hide his nature from his fellow-men.” Now, if you would take a part in heaven’s drama, you are to learn to be transparent, that is sincere. Your daily life is to be so much “above the board,” as we understand those words, that everybody can see, if they will but look with unprejudiced eye, that your words and actions are inspired by pure and honest motives.

2. We are told that the pavement of heaven is of the most valuable material, of “pure gold.” if, therefore, we take part in the drama of heaven, let us see that our life rests on the purest foundation; let our character be as genuine as the purest gold. Though your outward dress be of the poorest material, see that your inward character is of pure gold. Cultivate within yourself a love for the good and the true, and become a man whose thoughts and feelings are inspirations of God. How beautiful is this peach, with its silken and crimson colour! yet is there not a hard bitter stone at the core? The world spends too much time now-a-days in seeking to be beautiful outside. Let us, who show the drama of heaven on the stage of the earth, seek to be beautiful within.

3. From the description given by John we learn that the light of heaven is superb and effulgent. It is not the blaze of the sun, nor the brilliant flash of electricity; it is the light of the Lamb. By what rule do you walk? Is it by the maxims of society? The light which guides the inhabitants of heaven is -the spirit of the life of Jesus Christ; that sacred nature illumines heaven. The more men know the holy, loving God, whose human body was given for their redemption, the more will they abhor and forsake sin. The drama, therefore, which you and I have to play is to show men the character of God.

4. Notice, next, the clothing of the inhabitants of the land of light and love. It is said that they wear white robes. White is the emblem of purity and innocence. In order to exhibit heaven’s drama on earth, we have to put on the white robes of Christian charity and self-denial. We are to wear the crown of a king, not the shackles of a slave. We should regulate our passions as a king is supposed to govern his kingdom--for the good of the whole. We have to dare to do pure deeds and to venture on humane exploits.

5. Then remember that in the drama of heaven, you are to show the palms of victory which are waved in the hands of the white-robed in paradise. Let it be seen that you can fight on until you conquer. You may have fallen in past conflicts, but in this drama of heaven you are to show that while we live on earth, God can save us from our sins. I have not time to tell you all the other glorious characteristics of heaven, how we shall hunger no more and thirst no more. Heaven is a state of satisfaction; nothing will be wanting. This life is full of wants, real or imaginary. (W. Birch.)

Into heaven itself

On the ascension of Christ

I. It is remarkable that the Jews, as we learn from Josephus and the writings of the Hebrew doctors, considered THE OUTER COURTS OF THE TABERNACLE AS SYMBOLICAL OF THE EARTH, AND THE HOLY OF HOLIES AS AN EMBLEM OF HEAVEN. When, therefore, our Lord had by the sacrifice of Himself upon the Cross made expiation “for the sins of the whole world,” it became Him, as the great High Priest of mankind, to enter into the holy of holies, not made with hands, even “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”

II. It appears from many accounts, that while the high priest was making intercession in the most holy place, THE PEOPLE WERE WITHOUT, CONFESSING THEIR SINS, AND PROFESSING THEIR ALLEGIANCE TO THE ALMIGHTY. Among the uses which have been assigned to the golden bells, which were ordered to be suspended around the bottom of the pontifical robe, it has been supposed, with much probability, that they were to give notice when the high priest entered within the veil on this solemn business, that the people might behave with correspondent sobriety. In like manner, while our Master is in heaven, we in this earth, this outer court of God’s universal tabernacle, have our work to do. There are conditions of the covenant on our part to be fulfilled. Christ hath instructed His Church to live here, in the exercise of faith and repentance, of patience, devotion, and charity, while He is interceding for them with the Everlasting Father.

III. It belonged exclusively to the priests, under the Mosaic dispensation, TO BLESS THE PEOPLE IN BEHALF OF GOD. In like manner, our High Priest hath received of the Father all gifts and blessings for His Church. With the voice of His ministers, He dispenses to the penitent assurances of the pardon of their sins. (Bp. Dehon.)

The ancient holy of holies, a type of heaven

1. The holy of holies was the dwelling-place of Jehovah, where He manifested Himself in visible glory. Even so in the upper sanctuary does Jehovah manifest the brightness of His glory to the innumerable hosts of holy angels and blessed spirits, by whom He is unceasingly worshipped.

2. The ancient holy of holies was the most splendid and magnificent part of the tabernacle and temple. In this respect also it was but the type and shadow of heaven. “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God! “ It is represented as the paradise of God, where grows the tree of life. It is spoken of as Mount Zion, the antitype of the earthly hill on which were erected the temple of Jehovah and the palace of Judah’s kings, and which David celebrated as “beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.” It is described as a city, the New Jerusalem, the city of the great King, whose foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones. A still more impressive idea of the unrivalled magnificence of heaven is given us when it is described as the peculiar workmanship of the Almighty--as a place which His infinite power has been exerted to beautify, and which His boundless beneficence has been called forth to gladden and bless. Unlike the holy places in the ancient tabernacle and temple, this sanctuary has not been “made with hands”; it was not erected by any creature, neither was it formed out of any pre-existent matter, but created immediately by God Himself. It is the “ true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man”; the sanctuary, “not of this building”; the “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

3. The ancient holy of holies was, by Divine appointment, entirely concealed from the view of those who worshipped in the outer courts. With the most vigilant care it was kept sacred from all intrusion. Even from the holy place where the priests were wont to minister, it was separated by a thick curtain or veil of curiously embroidered tapestry, while the holy place itself was hidden from the people at large, who worshipped in the courts without, by means of a second veil of a similar description. There can be no question that all these arrangements were primarily designed to be emblematic of the particular character of that dispensation with which they were directly connected, as “signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing.” At the same time, however, they present us with a beautiful type of the physical concealment which invests the heaven of heavens. For “no man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came clown from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” Between these, the outer courts of the temple, and that loftiest shrine of this vast universe, God has been pleased to stretch an impervious and impenetrable veil. It is a great and glorious reality; but it is only by the eye of faith that it can be described on “ this dim spot which men call earth.” Even with all the light which the gospel has shed upon it, it is a glory that yet remains to be revealed.

4. In pursuing the analogy subsisting between the holy of holies and the heaven of heavens, it may be added that the office performed by the Jewish high priest in the former was a most significant emblem of the function to be discharged in the latter by Jesus, the anointed High Priest of our profession. (Peter Grant.)

Encouragement from Christ glorified

The ascension of our Lord into heaven is a subject not only of admiration, but also of infinite importance to us. Its consequences are countless in number, immeasurable in extent, and endless in duration. Man is actually in the highest glory of the divine majesty at the right hand of God, the same glory in which the blessed Son of God dwelt before He came into the world. It cannot but excite our admiring wonder to contemplate human nature so highly exalted. For “where He is, there shall we be also,” if we are His true disciples, and shall “behold His glory,” and be ourselves clothed with a body of resplendent light like that of the Lord. But when we compare what we ought to be, and what we really must become in order to our being permitted to follow Christ into His glorious kingdom, with what we actually are, we may be disposed to say, “Who then can be saved?” The great subject now before us comes to our relief in this awful question, cheering our anxious hearts with hope. “Christ,” saith the apostle, “entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” “For us” means in our behalf, in order to take our part, to stand on our side. But who is this our Advocate? Is He likely to act in our favour with any effect? Is He likely to have influence with the Father? Has He any power of His own? Hath He yet done anything for us? That the influence of Christ with the Father is all-prevailing we cannot doubt, when we consider that He is the only, the beloved Son of God. We shall be strengthened in this confidence if we call to mind that the blessed God gave Him for the very purpose of saving us John 3:16). And not only this, but also He hath made a covenant engagement, wherein He has graciously promised to receive all those for whom His Son pleads. The desire then of accomplishing His own benevolent purpose, the gracious love which He has for us, and His unfailing truth and faithfulness, all combine to strengthen our assurance that He will favourably hear the intercession of His beloved Son in our behalf (John 16:26). Will not the consideration of this blessed truth encourage us to return to God, to “humble ourselves under His mighty hand,” to implore that mercy promised to us through Christ, and render His Father favourable to us? Yes, if we seem as far from God as earth is from heaven, sunk as low in sin as the utmost depths of the ocean, yet when we look up and see One at the right hand of God ready to take our part, we may feel a cheering hope (Hebrews 6:19; Hebrews 7:25). But has this our blessed Saviour any power of His own? (Matthew 28:18; Revelation 1:18; 1 Chronicles 2:9, 1 Chronicles 2:9; Hebrews 7:25; Philippians 2:12). Most important is this view of the Saviour’s almighty power to the anxious Christian, who is “ working out his own salvation with fear and trembling.” Thoughtless people, who are not engaged in the struggle against sin, may not perceive its importance. They do not feel deeply concerned about their salvation. They allow their enemies undisputed possession of their heart. Wherefore passively acquiescing in their dominion, they do not feel their claims. But let a man endeavor to “rule himself after God’s Word,” and he will immediately find that he has powerful enemies to resist (Romans 7:15; Romans 7:21). He finds strong tendencies to sin, dispositions, tempers, passions, disposing and urging him to unchristian language and ungodly practices, and withholding him from the due and faithful discharge of his duty. But looking to Christ, he finds that he has reason to thank God that “sin shall not have dominion over him.” And thus having felt that of himself he could do nothing, he finds himself enabled to say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” But we shall feel greater confidence that the glorified Jesus will act in our behalf, if we’ can find that He hath already done anything for us. Now surely “the Lord hath done great things for us already.” He has come clown from heaven to earth for us men and for our salvation. He has endured the miseries of this sinful world for our sake. He has laid down His life for us. When we know that the blessed Son of God has clone and suffered so much for us, what can there be which He will not do for our sake? St. Paul puts this argument very strongly (Romans 5:6). Great therefore may be our hope when we think that we have One in heaven on cur side, whose peculiar care we are, who has taken upon Himself our nature, and dwells in our form; who has made our cause His own; One of all-prevailing influence with our heavenly Father, who graciously desires to listen to His intercession in our favour; One of infinite might and dominion; One who has already done and suffered great things for us, exercised mighty power, wisdom, and love for our protection, guidance, and salvation. As each person is able to see what this blessed Saviour has done for his soul, he will experience proportionate encouragement. (R. L. Cotton, D. D.)

Presence of Christ incarnate in heaven

The presence in heaven of Christ incarnate is perhaps the sublimest doctrine to which a rational faith can reach. It is an extension of His atoning life and death on earth, and the renewal of the eternal glory (once briefly suspended) with the Father in heaven. Considering also how it affects us in the present time by its immediate influence, as distinct, I mean, from His acts in the past and future, it is strange that it does not more often fill our thoughts. There is in the human breast an inextinguishable longing for present sympathy. Love cannot bear separation: it is not content with memory, or expectation! As the heart feels the burden of the passing hour, so does it for every hour want its portion of sympathy and love. Thus the presence in heaven of Christ in the glorified Body is a truth most fruitful in thoughts of the dignity of human life, and in ministries of comfort to those who walk upon the earth. I shall recall some passages in Scripture which throw light on the question of a body possibly existing in heaven, then of Christ’s Body in particular; and secondly, remark on the influence of His incarnate presence upon us:

I. To BEGIN WITH THE FIRST CREATED BODY. If Adam had kept his estate of innocence, he would not have died, nor would he, we imagine, have continued for ever in Paradise, among the trees and beasts of the earth. We believe that he would have been translated in his body, glorified, to heaven. Enoch was thus removed, and afterwards Elijah. Next, coming to the Person of our blessed Lord. His Body after the resurrection was the same which had died, though the life to which He rose was not a return to that which had expired on the Cross. His Body was the same, but endued with new powers and living under other conditions. Again, angels declared that as He was taken up into heaven, so in like manner should He come. If so, in what state does He pass the interval between the ascension and the judgment, that is, the present time? Surely in the same spiritual, glorified Body. Moreover, He has been seen once, and heard once, since His ascension. Is it not too often the case, that Christ is regarded as existing in heaven only as God, in a certain omnipresent nature, as He was from all eternity? Do not men argue, that as a day will come when He shall put aside His mediation that is “when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father,” so also He will then escape from the confines of His humanity, and return to simple God? Is it sufficiently taken into account that His condition there is altered by His Incarnation, and if His condition, then His influence over us?

II. To the evidence of Scripture and our Church formularies, I WILL ADD A FEW REMARKS ON SELF-EVIDENT SEASONS, WHY IT SHOULD BE SO. “The Word was made flesh”; the manhood of Christ was made perfect. He took not on Him the form of angels, but the seed of Abraham. It is a characteristic of human nature, that once man is man for ever. If then Christ is perfect Man, He is Man for ever. Not only that, but re, elation informs us that man will rise in the body, and live in his body for ever. If Christ has risen according to the laws which govern our resurrection (and this Scripture declares), He now lives, and will live for ever, in the Body with which He rose. What else is meant by Christ being the “first-fruits of them that slept,” “the first-Begotten of the dead,” and, in contradistinction from Adam, “The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit,” unless it be that Christ in His resurrection is the cause of our resurrection, and gives the law by which ours is determined? Once more, He is our Mediator. A mediator is one who represents both parties. In this case one party is God, the other is man. None can represent God but God, and Jesus is God; none can represent man but man, and Jesus is Man. If therefore we have need of a mediator in heaven now, He must be now, as heretofore, God and Man.

III. I have now to speak of THE INFLUENCE WHICH THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST INCARNATE IN HEAVEN HAS UPON MAN BELOW; AND OF THE PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE WHICH THIS DOCTRINE CAUSES IN OUR ESTIMATE OF HIS WORK FOR US. IS Christ omnipresent? Some persons will answer broadly, “Yes,” and go on to say that it is a man’s faith which makes Him present everywhere--that no possible thing is needed but faith; therefore, that all attempts to give the Saviour’s grace a local habitation is wrong; that particular ordinances and outward means of grace are superfluous, therefore superstitious. On the other hand, it is the creed of the Church that Christ has ordained that virtue shall go forth from Him in special and particular channels; and these we call outward means of grace. The sacred enclosure, within which these streams of grace are dispersed, is the Church. Now there is of course great diversity between these two views; but does not the difference arise chiefly from the advocates of the former view losing sight of the continuous agency of the Man Jesus Christ, and thinking that His manhood is now absorbed in His divinity. Would it not clear away doubts and misgivings from many, who sincerely love Christ, if they considered this point; viz., our blessed Lord is still in His Body, and many of His blessings He dispenses through the Body, being the fruits of the great things which He did and suffered in the Body. So far as He dispenses these through the Body, His dispensation of grace is not omnipresent, but regulated by orders of time, place, and conditions, as His will ordains. The participation of Christ through faith and obedience is not diminished by the act, which has attached to a particular ordinance a special grace of intimate communion with Him in the Lord’s Supper. These particular ordinances are the mysterious pathways, down which the several rays, which issue from His glorified Body, travel to earth. Nor is it any objection to this view that the influence of His Body is spiritual. In ordinary language “body” means matter, and an immaterial body seems to be a contradiction of terms. We cannot explain it; but to some extent it is intelligible that a body should be present only spiritually. For instance, when our Saviour said to the nobleman, “Thy son liveth,” was He not present by that sick-bed, though His natural Body was elsewhere? And remember, while Christ acts by virtue of His Incarnation, and is to some extent guided in His operations by the laws of His human nature, yet the Body which acts, acts more mightily because of the Godhead which possesses it. Lastly, if Christ be not really and spiritually present in the ordinances which He has instituted, in a sense of more close and intimate communion than can be applied to the generally diffused mercy and power of God, then the idea of any Church is a fiction; then the very acts in which we have been engaged to-day are vain; the gifts of bread and wine, which Christ has bidden us prepare for His consecration of them, convey no grace, but are merely stimulants, by outward signs of the feelings of our hearts; then all means of grace whatever are solely our acts to God, not His acts towards us. How different is the truth! Angels in heaven see in His dispensations of grace within the Church signs of the power of Christ unto salvation, of which without the Church they would not be aware, “that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God.” Thus our acts of worship are not fictions, our sacraments are not representations. There is an electric current ever circulating from Christ Incarnate through the members of His Body, which is the Church. (C. W. Furse, M. A.)

Christ the intercessor

I. THE THINGS SUPPOSED BY THE ENTRANCE OF CHRIST INTO HEAVEN ARE THE SAME AS THOSE SUPPOSED BY THE ENTRANCE OF THE HIGH PRIEST INTO THE MOST HOLY PLACE; namely, that heaven and earth are at variance, that sin has occasioned the feud, that blood is the alone price of expiation, and that this price must be laid upon the altar of the Holy One before He will ever look kindly upon man again. The difference in the case of the two dispensations lies in the application of any permanent and satisfactory relief to the sinner’s conscience. And this higher form of mediation, argues the apostle, we have in Christ, whose blood is no more to be compared to the blood of bulls and goats than is the heaven into which He has carried that blood to be compared with the holy place of the tabernacle. Christ is gone, therefore, to appear in the presence of God for us; gone to display a memorial of that sacrifice by which He has obtained eternal redemption for us; gone to exhibit the living virtue of His own blood, and to claim the crowns of immortality for those for whom it was shed.

II. Christ has gone to appear in the presence of God for us, says the text; that is, AS THE INTERCESSOR, THE ADVOCATE, THE GREAT UNDERTAKER OF HUMAN CAUSES IN THE COURT OF HEAVEN. Let us consider some of His special qualifications for so great a work.

1. As, first, it is an intercession founded on right. Christ appearing as the slain man is a direct appeal to the righteousness of God. It is the pledge of a price paid, a ransom accepted, a claim substantiated, a covenant signed and sealed. Christ pleads His sufferings no doubt, but this He does not to move pity nor to ask favour, but just to assert His right over all the dispensations of mercy, His boundless and eternal prerogative to forgive.

2. But, secondly, we should have comfort in this mediation of the ascended Saviour, from knowing that He orders all our spiritual affairs with consummate prudence. We often ask and have not, but we little think why. Our Intercessor has been asking for us the direct contrary of that which we have asked for ourselves. He saw that which we did not see, namely, that in the then temper of our minds and spirit the good sought would be no longer good.

3. Further, there is that in the appearance of Christ in heaven which should suggest to His believing people the thought of an individual and personal remembrance. If any man sin--any one man--he has an advocate with the Father. That which I desire to realise, is that the eye, the thoughts, the solicitudes of Jesus are concentrated and fixed on me; my needs to supply, my infirmities to help, my cause to order, my decaying members to revive, my rising corruptions to subdue.

4. But, once more, this appearance of Christ in heaven is an affectionate, earnest, deeply interested appearance. His heart is in the cause. He is a merciful High Priest as well as faithful. In undertaking the cause of believers He is not content to have an eye to see their afflictions, or an ear to listen to their complaints, or a tongue to promote their suit; but casts His lot in with them. He is afflicted in all their afflictions.

5. He has gone to appear in the presence of God for us as the Conqueror. “Thou hast ascended on high; Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts for men.” He who died as a Lamb rose as a Lion. With the head of the spiritual Goliath in His hand, the Son of David entered the streets of the New Jerusalem, there to appear in the presence of God for us.

6. Again, as a pledge and assurance that He both can and will order all things for the good of His Church, He appears in the presence of God for us. In describing His own session to the high priest, He tells him, “Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power”; power to execute wrath, power to cast down every high thing and every strong thing and every opposing thing that could exalt itself against the knowledge of Himself; power to direct and save; power to reward and bless. Let me note one or two practical thoughts, in conclusion, with which to associate the entrance of our Forerunner into the most holy place, there to appear in the presence of God for us. Thus we cannot but be impressed with a sense of the exceeding great honour which is put upon our human nature, in that one, in our likeness, should be the object of highest adoration to all the heavenly world. We are made more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, because Christ Himself was more than conqueror over all the misery He came to remedy, and all the enemies He came to subdue. And this suggests a kindred thought--the honour reserved for ourselves in that future world. We have a portion in that flesh and blood which is so highly exalted, and which now appears in the presence of God for us. Our interest with our Divine Head is one. If Christ reign, we shall reign; if He be taken up into glory, we shall not be beyond the circle of its diffused and effulgent rays. Lastly, how should our Lord’s leaving us, to enter into the most holy place, remind us that we have no continuing city here. Christ did not sit down in heaven until He had finished His work on earth: and we must finish our work as Christ did His. He who now appears in the presence of God for us knew no rest, does not know it even now. He ever liveth to make intercession, to sprinkle consciences, to send down grace, to restrain the power of the evil one, to keep the feet of His saints, to suffer no weapon formed against them to prosper. This is Christ’s work in heaven now, and will be for a time, and times, and a half a time, till the end of redemption is come. Then will come the great Sabbath; the Sabbath that shall sanctify the risen natures, the Sabbath that shall release our Great High Priest from all further appearance for us in the holy place, even the everlasting rest that remaineth for the people of God. (D. Moore, M. A.)

Christ the only Mediator:

I. THE TEMPLE IN WHICH HE MINISTERS.

II. THE MINISTRY WHICH IN THAT TEMPLE HE CONTINUES TO EXERCISE.

1. The ministry of a sympathising friend.

2. Rendering acceptable to God all our worship and service.

III. THE INFLUENCE WHICH THE KNOWLEDGE OF THESE TRUTHS OUGHT TO EXERCISE ON OUR FAITH AND CONDUCT, “Let us hold fast our profession.”

1. As respects the writing on which it is based.

2. As regards the consolations which it affords.

3. As regards the hopes which it naturally encourages. (W. Cadman, M. A.)

The sacrifice, intercession, and sympathy of Christ in heaven

The sacrifice and intercession of Christ are of course distinct in idea, but in fact are so united, that it is more convenient to consider them together. Sacrifice is intercession, not in word, but in act. It makes atonement for man to God; that is, sets God and man at-one. It comes between; that is, in the literal sense of the word, intercedes, mediates between the two, reconciles them; all of which terms apply with equal propriety to the one office as to the other, sacrifice and intercession. Minds unused to meditation on the continuance of these offices in heaven are inclined to the opinion that the whole work of the Atonement was concluded in the sacrifice of the Cross, and to so complete an extent that nothing remains for Christ to do till He returns to gather in His elect. Their thoughts linger around such texts as these, which at first sight seem to imply that at the moment in which the Saviour said, “It is finished,” His work was ended till the Judgment Day (Hebrews 10:12; 1 Peter 3:18). And all the passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews which draw out the contrast between the repeated sacrifices offered by the Jewish priests and the one oblation once made by Christ, favour the same opinion. The question is, do such words oppose the view that our great Mediator is ever working on behalf of men’s souls in heaven --My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Do they contradict the doctrine that Christ Jesus in His glorified body continues to exercise the virtue of His holy incarnation? Not in the least. The sacrifice once for all offered on the Cross is being perpetually represented and exhibited in heaven. This indeed is the meaning of the word in the text, inadequately translated “appear.” It is not merely that Christ stands and is seen before the Father’s throne; but He is arrayed in the vesture belonging to the Mediator, invested with all the symbols of His office as the Saviour of man, continually presenting to the eternal Father the sacrifice once for all made, interceding, pleading, advocating our cause. Hence it is, that in the Book of Revelation He is described as a “Lamb as it had been slain;” with the marks of death, the scars of the sacrifice upon Him, though His wounds are healed, and His body raised in glory. And it may be observed, once for all, that every description of His high-priesthood establishes the truth that it is exercised now continually in heaven. The great difference in this respect between the continual sacrifice offered day by day and year by year by the Jewish priests, and that offered by Christ, is that theirs was repeated, His is represented; theirs was begun afresh, as if nothing had yet been done; His is the oblation of the Body sacrificed once for all. There are some who say, and profess to believe, that it is enough to know that Christ once died for sinners; but they do not speak the language of the human heart. Does not the sense of sin pierce them even now? Does not the shame and dread of sin overwhelm at times even those for whom Christ died? Do they not spread their hands abroad in vain, and look out for help against themselves, and seek for some place where they may hide themselves from the confusion and reproach which their own hearts cast upon them?--that is, they need a present Mediator and Advocate. Again, the effect which the continued intercession of Christ must exercise over our destiny cannot be measured by any estimate of ours. His prayers are uttered night and day, hour by hour, whether men pray or whether they sleep. And then, as to their secondary effect, that is, their influence upon us--conceive how great a motive it is for men to pray, that their prayers may vibrate along the chords of His! Lastly, consider what comfort exists in the possession of the sympathy of Christ; and in the knowledge that He exists in the body of man, alive to all the human wants and natural infirmities of the heart. Has not the disciple to bear his cross; to rejoice in suffering; “to fill up what is behind of the afflictions of Christ in His flesh for His body’s sake which is the Church”; “‘to bear the marks of the Lord Jesus”; “to be crucified” with Him; to be “buried with Him”; “to be raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places” in Him; to have “our vile body changed that it may be like unto His glorious body”? And all this while there is His painless sympathy with pain in the least as in the greatest things. Many a thought of trouble, too slight or too. Lender to be worth exposure to the nearest friends, is, we may believe, marked by Him and remembered in His prayer, especially if it be one (as all the most inexplicable troubles are) entangled with our own folly or sin. “For we have not an High it. You said in your prayer, “O Lord, I am vile, I come to Thee; I plead Thy promise that Thou wilt not cast me out; I give myself away in an everlasting surrender; I leave my soul at the very foot of the Cross!” And then you rose from your knees, murmuring, “Oh, I am no better; I feel just the same as before!” You saw that you had made a failure. Now, where was the lack? Simply in the particular of trust. You would not take Jesus at His word. When you have given yourself to Christ, leave yourself there, and go about your work as a child in His household. When He has undertaken your salvation, rest assured He will accomplish it, without any of your anxiety, or any of your help. There remains enough for you to do, with no concern for this part of the labour. Let me illustrate this posture of mind as well as I can. A shipmaster was once out for three nights in a storm; close by the harbour, he yet dared not attempt to go in, and the sea was too rough for the pilot to come aboard. Afraid to trust the less experienced sailors, he himself stood firmly at the helm. Human endurance almost gave way before the unwonted strain. Worn with toil, beating about; worn yet more with anxiety for his crew and cargo; he was well-nigh relinquishing the wheel, and letting all go awreck, when he saw the little boat coming with the pilot. At once that hardy sailor sprang on the deck, and with scarcely a word took the hehn in his hand. The captain went immediately below, for food and for rest; and especially for comfort to the passengers, who were weary with apprehension. Plainly now his duty was in the cabin; the pilot would care for the ship. Where had his burden gone? The master’s heart was as light as a schoolboy’s; he felt no pressure. The pilot, too, seemed perfectly unconcerned; he had no distress. The great load of anxiety had gone for ever; fallen in some way or other between them. Now turn this figure. We are anxious to save our soul, and are beginning to feel more and more certain that we cannot save it. Then comes Jesus, and undertakes to save it for us. We see how willing He is; we know how able He is; there we leave it. We let Him do it. We rest on His promise to do it. We just put that work in His hands to do all alone; and we go about doing something else; self-improvement, comfort to others, doing good of every sort. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

Faith convinced of the invisible

I. No faith will carry us through the difficulties of our profession, from oppositions within and without, giving us constancy and perseverance therein unto the end, BUT THAT ONLY WHICH GIVES THE GOOD THINGS HOPED FOR A REAL SUBSISTENCE IN OUR MINDS AND SOULS. But when by mixing itself with the promise which is the foundation of hope, it gives us a taste of their goodness, an experience of their power, the inhabitation of their first-fruits, and a view of their glory, it will infallibly effect this blessed end.

II. The peculiar specificial nature of faith, whereby it is differenced from all other powers, acts, and graces in the mind, lies in this, THAT IT MAKES A LIFE ON THINGS INVISIBLE. It is not only conversant about them, but mixeth itself with them, making them the spiritual nourishment of the soul (2 Corinthians 4:18).

III. THE GLORY OF OUR RELIGION IS, THAT IT DEPENDS ON AND IS RESOLVED INTO VISIBLE THINGS. They are far more excellent and glorious than anything that sense can behold or reason discover (1 Corinthians 2:9).

IV. GREAT OBJECTIONS ARE APT TO LIE AGAINST INVISIBLE THINGS, WHEN THEY ARE EXTERNALLY REVEALED. Man would desirously live the life of sense, or at least believe no more than what he can have a scientifical demonstration of. But by these means we cannot have an evidence of invisible things; at best, not such as may have an influence into our Christian profession. This is done by faith alone.

1. Faith is that gracious power of the mind, whereby it firmly assents unto Divine revelations, upon the sole authority of God the revealer, as the first essential truth, and fountain of all truth.

2. It is by faith that all objections against invisible things, their being and reality, are answered and refuted.

3. Faith brings into the soul an experience of their power and efficacy, whereby it is cast into the mould of them, or made conformable unto them Romans 6:17; Ephesians 4:21). (John Owen, D. D.)

Shadow and substance

I. THE HOPE OF ATTAINING A PERFECT LIFE IS ONLY TO BE REALISED BY FAITH IN CHRIST.

II. THE HOPE OF PERFECTING OUR LIFE-WORK CAN ONLY BE REALISED BY FAITH IN CHRIST.

III. THE HOPE OF PERFECTING OUR HAPPINESS IS ONLY TO BE REALISED BY FAITH IN CHRIST. (R. Balgarnie, D. D.)

Faith;

First, then, this chapter shows us the different ways and modes of the working of faith. And secondly, it speaks to all characters of persons, showing the manner in which faith will affect particular characters. New men declare faith to be unreasonable. “Acting on trust! “ says a godless man, “how strange a mode of acting! Surely those who do it are trusting to some vague fancy or feeling, they scarce know what, and call it faith.” I answer, Although the thing which we believe, the object of faith, is most marvellous, yet faith itself, belief in the object, is no such strange or unusual thing. Every man constantly acts on faith, and the very man who laughs at another for acting on faith acts on faith himself every day.

1. That man trusts his memory. He does not now see or feel what he did yesterday, yet he has no doubt it happened as he remembers it.

2. Again, when a man reasons he trusts his reasoning powers; he knows one thing is true, and sees clearly that another follows from that. For example, he sees long shadows on the ground; then he knows the sun or moon is shining without looking round to see. But some one raises an objection. He says, “Very true; but in memory, reason, and daily life we trust ourselves; in religion we trust the word of another, and that is hard.” But there is no real difficulty. In this world we act on the evidence of others. What do we know without trusting others? Are there not towns and cities within fifty miles of us we never saw, yet we fully believe they are there. (E. Munro.)

Faith:

Out of the first clause let me observe--That a lively faith doth give such a reality and present being to things hoped for and yet to come, as if they were already actually enjoyed. And thus it is said of Abraham John 8:56).

I. How DOES FAITH GIVE A SUBSISTENCE OR PRESENT BEING TO THINGS HOPED FOR? How can we be said to have that happiness which we do but expect?

1. By a lively hope it doth as it were sip of the cup of blessing, and foretaste those eternal delights which God hath prepared for us, and affects the heart with the certain expectation of them, as if they were enjoyed. It appears by the effect of this hope, which is rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8).

2. Faith takes possession, and gives a being to the things hoped for in the promises. There is not only the union of hope, but a clear right and title; God hath passed over all those things to us in the covenant of grace. When we take hold of the promises, we take hold of the blessing promised by the root of it, until it flows up to full satisfaction. Hence those expressions, believers are said “to layhold of eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:12), by which their right is secured to them; “And he that heareth My words, and believeth in Me, hath eternal life” (John 5:24). Christ doth not only say, He shall have eternal life, but he hath a clear right and title to it, which is as sure as sense, though not as sweet. Faith gives us heaven, because in the promise it gives us a title to heaven; we are sure to have that to which we have a title; he hath a grant, God’s Word to assure him of it. He is said to haste an estate that hath the conveyance of it, but it is not necessary he should carry his land upon his back.

3. We have it in our Head. That is a Christian’s tenure; he holds all in his head by Christ. Though he be not glorified in his own person, he is glorified in his Head, in Jesus Christ. Therefore as Christ’s glorification is past, so in a sense a believer’s glorification is past; the Head cannot rise, and ascend, and be glorified without the members (Ephesians 2:6).

4. Faith gives being in the first-fruits. The Israelites had not only a right to Canaan given them by God, but had livery of Canaan, where the spies did not only make report of the goodness of the land, but brought the clusters of grapes with them; so doth God deal with a believing soul, not only give it a right, but give it some first-fruits. A believing soul hath the beginnings of that estate which it hopes for; some clusters of Eschol by way of foretaste in the midst of present miseries and difficulties. This is the great love of God to us, that He would give us something of heaven here upon earth, that He wil make us enter upon our happiness by degrees.

II. THE BENEFIT AND ADVANTAGE OF THIS ACT, AND THE USE OF FAITH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.

1. It is very necessary we should have such a faith as should substantiate our hopes, to check sensuality, for we find the corrupt heart of man is all for present satisfaction. And though the pleasures of sin be short and inconsiderable, yet because they are near at hand, they take more with us than the joys of heaven, which are future and absent.

2. It gives strength and support to all the graces of the spiritual life. The great design of religion is to bring us to a neglect of present happiness, and to make the soul to look after a felicity yet to come; and the great instrument of religion, by which it promoteth this design, is faith, which is as the scaffold and ladder to the spiritual building.

Use 1. To examine whether you have this kind of faith or no, which is the substance of things hoped for. To discover how little of this faith there is in the world, consider

(1) Many men say they believe, but alas, what influence have their hopes upon them? Do they engage them as things present and sensible do?

(2) You may discern it by your carriage in any trial and temptation. When heaven and the world come in competition, can you deny present carnal advantages upon the hopes of eternity? do you forsake all as knowing you shall have a thousand times better in another world?

(3) If faith do substantiate your hopes, though you do not receive present satisfaction, you may discern it by this, you will entertain the promises with much respect and delight. Are they dear and precious to you? You would embrace the promises if you looked upon them as the root of the blessing.

(4) You may discern it by this, the mind will often run upon your hopes. Where the thing is strongly expected, the end and aim of your expectation will still be present with you. Thoughts are the spies and messengers of the soul. Hope sends them out after the thing expected, and love after the thing beloved.

(5) You may discern it by your weanedness from the world. They that know heaven to be their home reckon the world a strange country.

(6) There will not be such a floating and instability in their expectation. You have already blessedness in the root, in the promises; and though there be not assurance, there will be an affiance, and repose of the mind upon God: if there be not rest in your souls, yet there will be a resting upon God, and a quiet expectation of the things hoped for. Faith is satisfied with the promise, and quietly hopes for the performance of it in God’s due time Lamentations 3:26).

Use 2. To exhort you to work up faith to such an effect, that it may be the substance of things hoped for.

(1) Work it up in a way of meditation. Let your minds be exercised in the contemplation of your hopes (Matthew 6:21).

(2) Work it up in a way of argumentation. Faith is a reasoning grace (verse 19).

(3) Work it up in a way of expectation. Look for it, long for it, wait for it Titus 2:13; Jude 1:21).

(4) Work it up in a way of supplication. Put in thy claim--Lord! I take hold of the grace offered in the gospel; and desire the Lord to secure thy Psalms 73:24).

(5) Work it up in a way of close and solemn application. In the Lord’s supper, there thou comest by some solemn rites to take possession of the privileges of the covenant, and by these rites and ceremonies which God hath appointed, to enter ourselves heirs to all the benefits purchased by Christ, and conveyed in the covenant, especially to the glory of heaven; there you come to take the cup of blessing as a pledge of the” new wine in your Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). God here reacheth out to us by deed, our instrument, which was by promise due to every believing sinner before.

(6) Work it up in your conversations by constant spiritual diligence. Is heaven sure, so sure as if we had it already, and shall I be idle? Oh what contriving, striving, fighting, is there to get a step higher in the world! How insatiable are men in the prosecution of their lusts I and shall I do nothing for heaven, and show no diligence in pursuing my great happiness!

Use 3. To press you to get this faith. There are some means and duties that have a tendency hereunto.

(1) There must be a serious consideration of God’s truth, as it is backed with His absolute power.

(2) You must relieve faith by experiences: by considering what is past we may more easily believe that which is to come. (T. Manton, D. D.)

Faith a substance

I. FAITH IS A SUBSTANCE. I know this is not generally received, for such are the vague, carnal, infidel notions that are abroad in the world, that not a grace of the Holy Spirit is owned; and instead of faith being admitted to be a principle of grace, it is spoken of as nature’s actings, and is sometimes said to consist merely in the credence of a revealed fact. An opposite party, however, makes faith to consist in a crouching, a cringing, and a conformity to a crafty priesthood. Now I have no such faith as either of these. The one is the faith of the infidel; the other is the faith of heathenism. And they neither of them have any substance. I want a faith that will manifest itself as having substance. I have seen it printed that faith is nothing more than the credence of a revealed fact. But we know that infidels and devils have that sort of faith; for infidels credit thousands of revealed facts, and cannot deny them as matters of fact, yet they have no faith after all. Faith is a substance; and they who are taken up with shadows and vanities do not know the value of it. They cannot value it. They cannot possess it. Faith is a substance worth more than all the miser’s stores, than all the monarch’s revenue, than all the wealth of India. Faith is a substance that can never be frittered away. It overcomes all the world, repels all the devils in hell, and lays hold on eternal life. But, most probably, you will better understand what I mean by this substance of faith if I lead your attention to its origin and its object. Its origin: It grows not in nature’s garden. It is not the produce of the schools. It is not hereditary from father to son. It is far above that. Like every good gift, and every perfect gift, it cometh down from the Father of Lights. It is of the operation of the Holy Ghost, and its object will prove its substance. Its object is Christ; the Person of Christ; the official character of Christ; the perfect work of Christ; the covenant headship of Christ. And the faith of God’s elect fastens on all these. Further, the object of faith lies greatly in the enjoyment of Christ as well as in confidence in Him. And this will perhaps bring the nature of your faith to the test better than any other principle. I must have a Christ who will bring heaven to me on earth in the enjoyment of Him here. And this will prove whether your faith is a substance or not. The soul which possesses this living, saving faith, sighs, waits, and cannot be satisfied without the sensible enjoyment of the presence of Christ. That faith which is a substance hath a saving power communicated with it. Hence it is called, sometimes properly, sometimes improperly, a saving faith. Bring your faith up to this test again. It is spiritual faith--the substance of things hoped for, that discovers all that is in Christ; the wisdom, the righteousness, the sanctification, and the redemption that are in Him: the pardon, the peace, the justification, the joy, the security, the victories, the triumphs of all the Church of God in Christ, seen wholly in His Person.

II. This saving faith which so discovers and appropriates Is SURE TO GO AND PLEAD BEFORE THE THRONE IN EXERCISE; “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” and cannot be acceptable before God; and there it pleads the merits, the name, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ for acceptance, relying upon the declaration of the precious Lord Himself, “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, believing, ye shall receive.” Now I pray you let us look closely into this substance, and raise the inquiry, Does it belong to me? “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Then the first part of the interrogation here would be, What are the things that I hope for? I know if I were to ask the worldling this question, he would reply that he thinks upon worldly prospects, emoluments, and personal gratifications. But not so the Christian; not so the household of faith. Well, now, if I might simplify this, and put it in the plainest possible manner, I should say that the believer hopes to know more and to enjoy more of Christ to-day than he did yesterday, or than ever he had done before. Faith is the substance of it. The believer in Jesus hopes to be more conformed to the image of Christ; “that as he has borne the image of the earthly, he shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” Faith is the substance of that. The believer in Jesus--the real Christian--hopes to attain to more intimacy with heaven and to have a measure of heaven began in the soul on earth. Let us inquire as regards experimental participation. There is such a thing as the joy of faith. There is such a thing as the triumph of faith. There is such a thing as the race of faith, and it is always a winning race. There are joys experienced in this substance which none but the possessor can know. I hasten on to mark its sanctifying operations. The apostle says concerning this, in his account of the progress of the gospel, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, that God “put no difference” between Jews and Gentiles, “purifying”--mark the expression--“purifying their hearts by faith.” That faith that will not purify the heart, is not the substance. It may illumine your head till you are giddy; it may enlighten your understanding till you are as proud as Lucifer; it may inflame your pride as a professor till you are as vain as the devil can wish you to be; but if it does not purify the heart, it is not of God--“purifying their hearts by faith.”

III. I will now proceed to speak of THE WEALTH WHICH THIS FAITH REALISES. It is a substance. Now, most people are ready to travel a good many miles in order to learn how to acquire wealth. They forego much carnal ease to get riches. But, after all, they make a terrible mistake. This is not true wealth. Riches make to themselves wings, they fly away, and defy all control. But the wealth which faith realises is altogether of a different kind. It has no wings. It is not subject to thieves. It cannot be hoarded up and be useless to its possessor; for it is that good principle which works by love. And thus faith realises the inheritance both of grace and of glory, and by it the title deeds to both are clearly read and lodged in the bosom of Deity. Oh, happy man, who goes so far in the attainment of faith! The wealth which faith realises is an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for all who are kept by the power of God through faith. I am not fond of relating anecdotes in the pulpit, but I cannot refrain on the present occasion from telling you one which I heard from my dear father’s lips when I was a boy. It was of a godly man who possessed much wealth, and used it for the glory of God, but who lived to prove that he could not clip its wings. All flew away, and he was reduced to living in a furnished room, where he was supported entirely by the charity of his friends. One of his visitors who had been very kind to him, once asked him this question, “How is it that I find you to be as happy now as when you were in possession of all your wealth?” His immediate answer was, “When I possessed all this world’s goods I enjoyed God in all; and now I possess none I enjoy all in God.” Now that is faith; that is substance; a fine specimen, a fine witness of it. (J. Irons.)

Faith

1. Faith is the confidence--the firm persuasion--of things hoped for. In the ancient games the runner hoped to win the race, to wear the crown of pine or olive leaves around his brow, and to have his name handed down as victor to untold generations; so, in the confidence of this, he strained every nerve and sinew to reach the goal. That was natural faith. The student hopes to win the prize and find his name in the honours list, and he gives his days and nights to reading. The farmer ploughs the land and sows the field, in hope that in due season he shall put in the sickle and gather the harvest. The merchant and tradesman hope to gain a competency or to make a fortune, and put forth their efforts day by day. These are illustrations of natural faith. So it is with the faith that has to do with spiritual things. The Christian sets before him, not the crown of fading leaves, but the crown that shall never fade away, which the Lord will place upon the brow of all who endure unto the end. He seeks for the smile and approbation of the Saviour, for the treasures in heaven, for the bags which wax not old. This is spiritual faith.

2. Faith is the demonstration of things not seen. Columbus believed that there was another world in the western hemisphere; he was as fully assured of its existence as if it had been demonstrated by mathematical proof. Yet he had not seen the new world; he had never looked upon its mighty rivers, or upon the broad expanse of its prairies and savannahs. He had not ever seen in the dim distance the peak of any of its mountains, or the outline of its coast. No navigator had told him, “I have seen the new world; I have cast anchor in its harbours; I have set foot upon it.” Yet, in the full conviction that there was another world, he toiled and waited many years, until his eye rested upon it and he landed on its shores. This was natural faith--the demonstration of things not seen. Some years ago the astronomers, Mr. Adams of Cambridge, and M. Leverries of Paris, were convinced that there must be a large planet that had never been seen through a telescope or marked down in any star-map; so they watched the midnight heavens in a certain direction until the planet came within the range of their glass. This was the way the planet Neptune was discovered. This was natural faith. It is even so with the faith that has to do with spiritual things. God is unseen; His glory is dimly reflected in His works. We see the work of His fingers in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Creation is a book in which we may read, page after page, His handwriting, His own Divine autograph; but the Almighty Writer is unseen. In the flowers of the field we see the forms of beauty which He has pencilled and coloured and enamelled; the Divine Artist we see not. We stand and gaze with wonder and admiration upon a part of this beautiful temple of creation, but we see not the Divine Architect; yet, as in St. Paul’s Cathedral, we read of the architect, Sir Christopher Wren, “If you seek his monument, look around,” so we see in the skill and wisdom displayed in this glorious creation the monument of the Almighty Builder. We believe that God is, and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. We believe in the great love which He has towards us, which He has revealed in Jesus Christ; that, like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him; that He watches over us by day and by night, that His ear is open to our prayer, His arm stretched out for our defence. We believe that He is present with us in the house of prayer, and we can say with the confidence of Jacob, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” &c. We believe that He has given to us exceeding great and precious promises, that we may be partakers of the Divine nature; and that, although the heaven and the earth pass away, not one of these promises will fail. We believe in an unseen Saviour, &c. (W. Bull, B. A.)

Evangelical faith

I. THE THINGS TOWARDS WHICH FAITH IS DIRECTED ARE INVISIBLE.

II. SOME OF THE INVISIBLE THINGS ARE AT ONCE DESIRABLE AND ATTAINABLE.

III. THOSE INVISIBLE THINGS, WHICH ARE DESIRABLE AND ATTAINABLE, FAITH MAKES POWERFUL IN THE PRESENT LIFE. (Homilist.)

The value and importance of faith

Faith is the source of all truly religious feeling, and the ground of all acceptable service. Without it we can neither come to God nor perform any work which is acceptable to Him.

1. Faith is the condition of justification: “Being justified by faith”; “He that believeth is not condemned; he that believeth not is condemned already.”

2. It is the source of spiritual life: “The just shall live by faith.” “He that believeth hath everlasting life; he that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

3. It puts us in possession of every Christian privilege.

(1) The gift of the Spirit: “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? … In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise.”

(2) Adoption into the Divine family: “To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name;” “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

(3) Peace with God and peace of mind: “Being justified by faith we have peace with God;” “He that believeth shall not make haste.” Joy in God: “In whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

4. It is the source of all Christian feeling and action. Our hearts are “purified by faith.” Our prayers to be acceptable must be offered “in faith.” If we would ask successfully, we must “ask in faith, nothing wavering.” (W. Landels, D. D.)

What is faith:

Faith has many workings, many results, many frets--and some select one of these and call it faith itself. But the text goes to the source when it says, “What faith is this.” The word here rendered “substance,” means properly the act of “standing under” so as to support something. Thus in philosophical writings it was applied to the essence which forms, as it were, the substratum of the attributes; that supposed absolute existence (of thing or person) in which all the properties and qualities, so to say, inhere, and have their consistence. In this way the word is once applied in Scripture, in the third verse of this Epistle, to the essence of God Himself, and the Divine Son is said to be “the express image of His person”--the very “impress,” as it might be otherwise rendered, “of His essence.” But there was another use of the word, in which it meant the act of the mind in standing under (so as to support, and bear the weight of) some statement or communication, making, as we say, a heavy demand upon the faculty of believing. It thus passes from the idea of “ substance” into that of “assurance” or “confidence.” It is thus used by St. Paul in two passages of the second Epistle to the Corinthians, where he speaks of his “confidence” in the readiness of their alms-giving, and again of the “confidence of his glorying,” though it be in weakness, about himself. And so, once again, in the third chapter of this Epistle to the Hebrews, we find the expression, “If we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” There can be no question as to the meaning of the word in the verse now before us. “Faith is the assurance of (confidence in) things hoped for.” Faith is that principle, that exercise of mind and soul, which has for its object things not seen but hoped for, and which, instead of sinking under them as too ponderous, whether from their difficulty or from their uncertainty, stands firm under them--supports and sustains their pressure--in other words, is assured of, confides in and relies on them. It is not the Christian only who lives by faith. Faith is no dreamy, imaginative, or mystical thing, which it is fanciful if not fanatical to talk of. The schoolboy who expects a holiday, to be earned by his diligence or forfeited by his misconduct, exercises faith in that expectation the husbandman who expects the harvest is exercising that “confidence in things hoped for” which is faith. The parent who anticipates the manhood of his child is an example of that “walking by faith” which only madmen and fools disparage or dispense with. When Christ bids us to be men of faith, He is not contradicting nature, He is not even introducing into the world a new principle of action; He is only applying a principle as old as Nature herself, to matters beyond and above nature, which it needed a new revelation from the God of nature to disclose and to prove to us. If this proof be given us, it becomes as reasonable to anticipate and to prepare for eternity as it is reasonable to anticipate and to prepare for a holiday or a harvest, a wedding, or a profession. “Faith is confidence in things hoped for”; and whether the expected future be a later day of this life, or a day which shall close this life and usher in an everlasting existence, the principle which takes account of that future is one and the same--only debased or elevated, profaned or consecrated, by the length of the vision and by the character of the object. We must walk by faith if we would not be the scorn and laughingstock of our generation. The only question is, What, for us, are those “things hoped for,” which faith makes its object? Are they the trifles of time, or are they the substances of eternity? Are they the amusements, the vanities, the luxuries, the ambitions, which make up the life of earth--or are they the grand, the satisfying, the everlasting realities which God has revealed to us in His Son Jesus Christ--such as the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, victory over evil, the communion of saints, a growing likeness to Christ, a death full of hope, and a blessed immortality in God’s presence? (Dean Vaughan.)

Faith the substance and evidence:

An unseen and heavenly world is required to correspond to our faith just as much as a material world to correspond to our senses. I stand in the midst of nature on some lovely spring morning. The fragrance of flowers from every bright and waving branch, dressed in pale and crimson, floats to me. The song of matin birds falls on my ear. All this beauty, melody, and richness are the correspondence to my nature of the material world through my senses. Now there are inward perceptions and intuitions just as real as these outward ones, and requiring spiritual realities to correspond with them, just as much as the eye requires the landscape, or as the ear asks for sounds of the winds and woods and streams, for the song of birds, or the dearer accents of the human voice. To meet and answer the very nature of man, a spiritual world, more refined modes of existence, action, happiness, must be, else his nature, satisfied and fed in one direction, and that the lowest, is belied and starved in another direction, and that the highest. But, without illustrating further, in this general way, the rooting of faith in the primary ground of our being, let me show the peculiar light in which the great doctrines and practical influences of religion are brought to us, by thus considering “faith” itself as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And first the great doctrine or fact of the being of a God is one of the things that corresponds to our faith, of which faith itself, as a faculty of the soul, is the basis and evidence. We want no other reason for believing in God. Faith itself is the reason, and the best reason. “He that believeth hath the witness in himself.” We need nothing put under our faith to support that, any more than under our direct outward perceptions, our positive knowledge, the dictates of our consciences, or the affections of our hearts, going forth to fix upon their appropriate objects. Like them, it is a radical part of our very constitution--only a part which Christ has come specially to bring out, enrich, and ennoble with the truth he utters, and the actual objects he presents. To the man in whom this principle or sentiment of faith is thus enlivened by meditation, prayer, and the whole stimulus of the gospel, the Supreme One does not appear simply as a first Cause, an original Creator, far back out of our present reach, but as the perpetual Sustainer and Renewer of all things, to whom he joins with the angelic choir of the poet in singing, “Thy works are beautiful as on the first day.” His God is near him, nay, with him; breathes upon him in the freshness of the morning; folds him tenderly in the shades of night, and answers every entreating or confiding desire which he silently ejaculates, with peace, sanctity, assurance that can be felt; “the benediction from these covering heavens falling upon him like dew.” As, sailing in northern latitudes, the needle dips to an unseen power, so his heart inclines to the unseen power of heaven and earth. With an ever-quickening sense of the Divine Being, comes also, through this vitally unfolded power of faith, the feeling of a share in the permanence of that Being; a persuasion, and, so far as in the flesh such a thing can be, realisation of the immortality of the soul. As we believe in the world below because we have senses, and not because somebody attempts logically to prove it to us, so we believe in the world above by the inner perceptions of faith. In fine, the same faith, while convincing us of this durableness of our real life, redeems us from the bondage of death, to which many, all their lifetime, are subject. Thus the apostle declares of Christ, that he “ abolished death.” For just in the degree that, through a religious faith, the feeling of immortality grows in the soul, the death of the body loses power to disturb or alarm it. Principles and affections are developed, on which, we know and are inwardly assured, death cannot lay that icy finger which must chill every flowing drop in the circulation of animal life. The spirit, alive to its relations to God and to all pure beings, is conscious of nothing in common with the grave, has nothing that can be put into the grave save the temporary garment that it wears; and its mounting desires, its ardent love, its swelling hopes, its holy communings, are not stuff woven into the texture of that garment, but are as separable from it as the lamp from its clay vase, as the light of heaven from the clod it for a passing moment illumines. In fact, in this state of inward life, the ideas of the spirit and death, of dust and the soul, cannot be brought together, any more than can the ideas of virtue and colour, thought and material size. (C. A. Bartol.)

Faith, the substance of things hoped for:

It is a certain and evident fact that every one of us is living, every moment, in two worlds: a material world and a spiritual world. All nature, all with which our bodies only have to do is one; all thought and memory and hope, and the inner workings of the mind, all that lies far away out of sight, all beyond the grave, all that concerns other worlds than this, that is the other world. The spiritual world which we cannot see is as real as the material world which is always before us. The power which makes the spiritual world a fact, by which we realise it, is “faith.” And that power is one with which it has pleased God to endow us all for that end. And where that “ faith” is in full exercise, the unseen becomes more real than the seen--for the seen can only be when it is actually present, and must cease with our natural life, while the unseen, though invisible now, will soon be all that we shall see, and will last for ever. Hence, “faith,” which is the sight of the mind, is a far greater thing than the sight of the eyes; for it has to do with the inner nature of a man which he carries with him everywhere, which is always going on: and it takes in, and makes real and present, God and heaven, and all that God hath said and done, or will say and will do; and all the grandnesses of the eternity. It makes “substance” of all these things, and gives “evidence” of our hope that these substances are ours. If I had to define “faith” I should call it a loving trust, a loving, personal approbation, merging into a holy life. But what is the groundwork of faith? what is its warrant? what justifies you in believing all this? God’s voice. How does God’s voice speak to me? Partly in His word, partly in His works, partly in His whisperings to my soul. There are two things which must never be forgotten about “faith.” The one is that though faith is a reasonable and intellectual exercise of the mind, nevertheless it lies more in the heart than in the head. It is not written without a distinct point and sufficient reason, “The evil heart of unbelief.” How can you believe and sin? The belief comes from God only. And the second and most important consideration is that all “faith” is a gift. However much you may read and study and think, you will never obtain faith except by prayer. It lies in the sovereignty of God. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Faith a sign of human progress:

Faith is really a sign of human progress. It is the first thing that distinguishes us from the beasts of the field. Let me use an illustration: If there is grass for the ox, the ox feeds; if there be none it dies. It knows nothing of tillage or preparation of the soil for its provender. It knows no future. So, in a measure, is it with the savage. In his rudest state he is only one step above the brute. He hunts for his food, or gathers the wild fruit of the earth. Then take the stage of human life next above this--the simple, wandering, pastoral life. The shepherd or herdsman has to shift his flock from one district to another. He looks forward but a very little. Then comes the agricultural life, in which some provision has to be made for the future. The field is ploughed and sown in prospect of the next year’s harvest. Then comes a more civilised age, that of building and teaching. The pious ecclesiastic lays the foundations of some grand cathedral, in which he has faith to believe that future generations will worship. The poet or the prophet speaks, content that men unborn shall acknowledge the truth of his message or his song. And this indicates the onward progress. According as a man is animated by some lofty purpose, so his view is wide and far-reaching. As he is simply selfish, and believes only in his present gains and in what serves his present purpose, so his view and place is small. It is faith, or trust in what is distant and unseen, which alone raises him and makes him great. (H. Jones, M. A.)

Faith a well-worn word scarcely realised in meaning:

These key-words of Scripture meet the same fate as do coins that have been long in circulation. They pass through so many fingers that the inscriptions get worn off them. We can all talk about faith and forgiveness and justifying and sanctifying, but how few of us have definite notions about what these words that come so easily from our lips mean. There is a vast deal of cloudy haze in the minds of average church and chapel goers as to what this wonder-working faith may really be. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Faith not blind confidence:

Faith--true, living faith--is not mere blind confidence; it is confidence for a reason. (Hy. Dunn.)

The repose of faith

Faith might perhaps, not improperly, be denominated the repose of the intellect and the repose of the affections; i.e., the understanding perfectly admitting the Divine testimony and the heart confidently trusting the Divine assurances. (T. Binney)

The evidence of things not seen

Faith, the evidence of things not seen

I. First, concerning the ACT. Faith is said to be “ the evidence.” It is a grace that representeth the things of religion with such clearness and perspicuity of argument, that a believer is compelled to subscribe to the truth and worth of them; as a man yieldeth, when he seeth clear evidence to the contrary. There are in faith four things:

1. A clear light and apprehension. As soon as God converteth the soul, He puts light into it.

2. Faith is a convictive light, that findeth us corrupt and ill-principled, and full of prejudices against the doctrine of the gospel; and it is the work of faith to root out of the soul those carnal prejudices, counsels, reasonings, and carnal excuses which shut out that doctrine which the gospel offereth to us.

3. It is an overpowering and certain conviction, that is, such as dispossesseth us of our corrupt principles, and argueth us into a contrary opinion and belief.

4. It is a practical conviction. He that believeth is so convinced of the truth and worth of these things, that he is resolved to pursue after them, to make preparation for his eternal condition.

Use: To put us upon examination and trial, whether we have such a faith or no, as is an evidence or convincing light; you may try it by the parts of it. There is the assent of faith and the consent of faith; a clear light and firm assent, and a free consent to the worth of the things of God.

1. There is a clearness and perspicuity in the light of faith, which doth not only exclude the grossly ignorant, but those that have no saving knowledge.

2. We may know whether faith be an evidence by the firmness of our consent. If men were more convinced there would be a greater conformity in their practices to the rules of religion.

II. I come to the OBJECT, “Things not seen.” Faith is an evidence, but what kind of evidence? of things that cannot be otherwise seen, which cloth not disparage the evidence, but declare the excellency of faith. “Not seen,” that is, not liable to the judgment of sense and reason. What are those “things not seen”? Things may either be invisible in regard of their nature, or of their distance and absence from us. Some things are invisible in their own nature--as God, angels, and spirits; and all the way and work of the Holy Ghost in and about the spiritual life. Other things are invisible in regard of their distance and absence; and so things past and to come are invisible; we cannot see them with our bodily eyes, but they are discovered to us by faith. In short, these “ things not seen,” are either matters of constant practical experience, which are not liable to outward sense, or principles of knowledge, which are not suitable to natural reason.

1. Matters of practical experience. The blessings of religion as the enduring substance (Hebrews 10:34), the benefit of affliction, the rewards and supplies of the spiritual life, answers of prayer, they are things not seen in regard of the bodily eye and carnal feeling; but faith expects them with as much assurance as if they were corporeally present, and could be felt and handled, and is assuredly persuaded of them, as if they were before our eyes.

2. Principles of knowledge. There are many mysteries in religion above reason; until nature put on the spectacles of faith, it cannot see them.

That the evidence of faith is conversant about things unseen by sense or natural reason.

1. Because much of religion is past, and we have bare testimony and revelation to warrant it; as the creation of the world out of nothing, the incarnation, life, and death of Christ; these are truths not liable to sense, and unlikely to reason--that God should become a man and die. Now upon the revelation of the word, the Spirit of God makes all evident to faith.

2. Much of religion is yet to come, and therefore can only be discerned by faith. Fancy and nature cannot outsee time, and look beyond death (2 Peter 1:9); unless faith hold the candle to hope we cannot see heaven at so great a distance. Heaven and the glorious rewards of religion are yet to come; faith only can see heaven in the promises and look upon the gospel as travailing in birth with a great salvation.

3. That of religion which is of actual and present enjoyment, sense or reason cannot discern the truth or worth of it; therefore faith is still the evidence of things unseen.

If the object of faith be things unseen, then

1. Christians should not murmur if God keep them low and bare, and they have nothing they can see to live upon. As long as they do their duty, they are in the hands of God’s providence.

2. In the greatest extremity that can befall us there is work for faith, but no place for discouragement; your faith is never tried till then.

3. A Christian is not to be valued by his enjoyments, but by his hopes. “He hath meat and drink which the world knows not of” (John 4:32).

4. Christ may be out of sight, yet not out of mind.

Reproof to those that are all for sense and for present appearance.

1. Such as “do not believe without present feeling.

2. Such as cannot wait upon God without present satisfaction.

(1) This is a great dishonour to God, to trust Him no further than we see Him. You trust the ground with your corn, and can expect a crop out of the dry clods, though you do not see how it grows, nor which way it thrives in order to the harvest.

(2) It is contrary to all the dispensations of God’s providence. Before He gives in any mercy there are usually some trials.

(3) It is contrary to the nature of faith.

(4) It will weaken our hands in duty when we look to every present discouragement. If faith be such an evidence of things not seen, then let us examine--have we this faith that can believe things not seen? This is the nature of true faith. Hope built upon outward probability is but carnal hope; but here is the faith and hope we live by, that which is carried out to things not seen with the bodily eye.

Take these directions to discover it.

1. How doth it work as to Christ now He is out of sight? Alas! to most Christians Christ is but a name, a fancy, or an empty conceit, such as the heathens had of their topical gods, or we of tutelar saints, some for this country and some for that. Do you pray as seeing Him at God’s right hand in heaven pleading your cause, and negotiating with God for you?

2. How doth it work as to His coming to judgment? Is the awe of that day upon your hearts? and do you live as those that must give aa account even for every idle word, when the great God of recompenses shall descend from heaven with a shout?

3. How can you comfort yourselves in the midst of all your straits and sorrows with the unseen glory of another world? Do not you faint in your duty, but bear up with that courage and constancy which becomes Christians (2 Corinthians 4:16). 4, How doth it work as to the threatenings of the Word? Can you mourn for a judgment in its causes, and foresee a storm when the clouds are but a gathering?

5. How doth your heart work upon the promises in difficult cases? Thereby God tries you, and thereby you may try yourselves (John 6:5).

6. You may try your assent to the promises by the adventures you make upon God’s word.

7. You may know whether you have this faith, which evidenceth things to come, and find out the weakness or strength of it by observing the great disproportion that is in your affections to things of sense, and things of faith. It is true, a Christian is not all spirit, and therefore sensible things work more with the present state of men than things spiritual. But yet certainly in a child of God, one that believes, that hath the evidence of things not seen, there will be some suitableness.

8. You may know whether you have this faith by your thoughts of the ways of God, when they are despised or opposed. Faith, which is the evidence of things not seen, can see a great deal of beauty in a despised way Of God, and glory in a crucified Christ; as the good thief upon the cross could see

Christ as a king, when he hung dying on the cross in disgrace (Luke 23:42).

To press you to get this faith, which is the evidence of things not seen, that you may believe that which God hath revealed in His Word, and that solely upon God’s authority and the account of His Word; to quicken you to get this faith, which is of such great use to you.

1. Consider that all the difficulty in assenting to doctrines of Scripture was not only in the first age.

2. Consider the benefit of a sound conviction. A clear evidence of the mysteries of salvation is a great ground of all reformation of life.

3. The more faith depends upon the warrant of God’s Word the better; and the fewer sensible helps it hath, the more it is prized (John 20:29).

4. Sensible things will not work, if we do not believe the Word; those that think Moses and the prophets are but a cold dispensation in comparison of this, if one should come from the dead, for then they would repent and turn to God, let them read (Luke 16:29).

5. We have need now to look after this faith, which is the evidence of things not seen, because the great reigning and prevailing sin is infidelity and unbelief; which is seen by our cavilling at every strict truth, by our carelessness in the things of God, by the looseness and profaneness of those that would be accounted Christians.

6. We ought to look to this faith, because none are so resolved in the great matters of faith, but they may be more resolved; no man doth so believe but he may believe more (1 John 5:13).

Direction to get and increase this faith.

1. Beg the illumination of the Spirit of God to show you the truth of the Word, and the good things offered therein. This evidence is from the Spirit; thereof Paul prays for the Ephesians (Ephesians 1:17).

2. Employ your reason, serious consideration, and discourse. The devil throws the golden ball in our way, of honour, pleasure, and profit, to divert us from heavenly things; and the intention of the mind being diverted, the impressions of religion are weak and faint.

3. Labour to get a heart purged from carnal affections. Where there is more purity there will be more clearness (Matthew 5:8). (T. Manton, D. D.)

Faith:

What a mighty thing as a motive-power this faith must be! If a man is possessed by it, that something can be done; in some sure sense, it is done already, and only waits its time to come into visible existence in the best way it can. Just as one of those noble groups John Rogers fashions for us is done the moment the conception of it has struck his heart with a pang of delight, though he may not have so much as the lump of clay for his beginning; while I might stand with the clay in my hand to doomsday, and not make what he does, because I could not have the “ Faith … the evidence of things not seen.” What cannot be done, cannot be of faith. There can be no real faith in the soul toward the impossible; but make sure that faith is there, and then you can form no conception of the surprises of power hidden in the heart of it. And, trying to make this thing clear to you, I know of no better way to begin, than by saying, that faith is never that airy nothing which often usurps its place, and for which I can find no better name than fancy--a feeling without fitness, an anticipation without an antecedent, an effect without a cause, a cipher without a unit. A mere fancy, to a pure faith, is as the “Arabian Nights” to the Sermon on the Mount. Then faith is not something standing clean at the other extreme from fancy, for which there is no better name than fatalism--a condition numbers are continually drifting into, who, from their very earnestness, are in no danger of being sucked into the whirlpools of fancy; men who glance at the world and life through the night-glass of Mr. Buckle; who look backward and there is eternity, and forward and there is eternity; and feel all about them, and conclude that they are in the grasp of a power beside which what they can do to help themselves is about what a chip can do on the curve at Niagara. And yet their nature may be far too bright and wholesome to permit them to feel that the drift of things is not on the whole for good. They will be ready even to admit that “our souls are organ-pipes of diverse stop and various pitch, each with its proper note thrilling beneath the self-same touch of God.” But, when a hard pinch comes, they smoke their pipe, and refer it to Allah, or cover their face and refer it to Allah; but never fight it out, inch by inch, with all their heart and soul, in the sure faith that things will be very much after all what they make them--that the Father worketh hitherto, and they work. And these two things--the fancy that things will come to pass because we dream them, and the fatalism that they will come to pass because we cannot avoid them--are never to be mistaken for faith. It is true that there is both a fancyand a fatalism that is perfectly sound and good--the fancy that clothes the future to an earnest lad with a sure hope; that keeps the world fresh and fair, as in nature like that of Leigh Hunt, when to most men it has become arid as desert dust;--the bloom and poetry, thank God, by which men are converted, and become as little children. And there is a fatalism that touches the very centre of the circle of faith--which Paul always had in his soul. When sounding out some mighty affirmation of the sovereignty of God, he would go right on, with a more perfect and trusting devotion to work in the line of it. Fancy and fatalism, are the strong handmaidens of faith; happy is the man whose faith they serve. But what, then, is faith? Can that be made clear? I think it can. A young man feels in his heart the conviction, that there in the future is waiting for him a great destiny. Yet that destiny depends on his courage, and that courage on his constancy; and it is only when each has opened into the other, that the three become that evidence of things not seen, on which he can die with his soul satisfied--though all the land he had to show for the one promise was a graveyard;and all the line for the other, a childless son. Another feels a conviction, that here at his hand is a great work to do--a nation to create out of a degraded mob, and to settle in a land where it can carry out his ideas and its own destiny. But the conviction can be nothing without courage; and courage, a mere rushing into the jaws of destruction, without constancy. Only when forty years had gone, and the steady soul had fought its fight, did conviction, courage, and constancy ripen into the full certainty which shone in the eyes of the dying statesman, as he stood on Nebo, and death was swallowed up in victory. And yet it is clear, that, while courage and constancy in these men was essential to their faith, faith again was essential to their courage and constancy. These were the meat and drink on which the faith depended; but the faith was the life for which the meat and drink were made. A dim, indefinable consciousness at first it was, that something was waiting in that direction, a treasure hid in that field somewhere, to be their own if they durst but sell all they had, and buy the field. Then, as bit by bit they paid the price in the pure gold of some new responsibility or sacrifice, the clear certainty took the place of the dim intimation, and faith became the evidence of things not seen. This is the way a true faith always comes. Conversing once with a most faithful woman, I found that the way she came to be what she is lay at first along the dark path, in which she had to take one little timid step at a time. But, as she went on, she found all the more reason to take another and another, until God led her by a way she knew not, and brought her into a large place. Yet it was a long while before any step did not make the most painful drafts on both her courage and constancy. And so the whole drift of what man has done for man and God is the story of such a leading--first a consciousness that the thing must be done, then a spark of courage to try and do it; then a constancy that endures to the end; and then, whatever the end may be--the prison or the palace, it is all the same--the soul has the evidence of things not seen, and goes singing into her rest. Now, then, we want to make sure of three things, then we shall know that this faith is our own

1. That God is at work without me--that is, the Divine energy--as fresh and full before I came, as the sea is before the minnow comes.

2. That He is at work through me--that is, the Divine intention--as certainly present in my life as it was in the life of Moses; and

3. That what we do together is as sure to be a success as that we are striving to make it one. There may be more in the graveyard than there is in the home. In the moment toward which I have striven forty years with a tireless, passionate, hungry energy, my expectation may be cut off, while my eye is as bright and my step as firm as ever. It is no matter. The energy is as full, the intention as direct, and the accomplishment as sure, as though God had already made the pile complete. And when, with the conviction that t can do a worthy thing, and the courage to try and the constancy to keep on, I can cast myself, as Paul did, and Moses and Abraham, into the arms of a perfect assurance of this energy, intention, and accomplishment of the Eternal--feel, in every fibre of my nature, that in Him I live and move and have my being--I shall not fear, though the earth be removed, because

“A faith like this for ever doth impart

Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power,
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation.”

(R. Collyer, D. D.)

The evidence of things not seen

I. THE OBJECT IS SOMETHING NOT SEEN. Things unseen are not only such things as are invisible, and such as cannot be received by the eye, but also such as are not perceivable by any of our senses. Neither are things insensible meant, but such as are above the reach of reason. So that things unseen are such as are neither perceivable by the sense nor reason, so as to have either an intuitive or demonstrative knowledge of them. These are such as are conveyed to the soul by Divine revelation, without which man could not have known them; and such propositions as the connection of the terms depend upon the will of God.

II. FAITH IS THE EVIDENCE OF THESE THINGS UNSEEN; because we, having a certain knowledge of God’s veracity, and His revelation of these things, are as certainly persuaded of the truth of them; and give as firm assent unto them as if they were seen and intuitively and demonstratively known unto us. Yet here you must consider

1. That though the things and propositions be above reason, yet this persuasion or firm assent and this certain knowledge of the Divine revelation are acts of reason, and in the book of reason are they written.

2. That this object is of greater latitude than the former. For things hoped for, which are to come, are not seen; and not only they, but many things past and present.

3. That the things not seen in this place are not all things not seen, but such as God hath revealed to be the matter and object of our Divine faith.

4. That though substance and evidence may differ, yet both are a firm assent; but in respect of the things hoped for, may include a firm confidence and a certain expectation; for in respect of that object, that assent is more practical than this evidence which respects things unseen; so that here wants but little of a perfect definition.

5. The faith here defined is Divine faith in general, not that which is called justifying as justifying, for that is but a particular branch of this general, looking at a particular object, which is Christ’s sacrifice and His intercession. (G. Lawson.)

Faith proving and reproving:

In the realm of the unseen faith examines and discriminates. Faith is not credulity. Faith is not the promiscuous acceptance of this, that, and everything which lies out of sight. Faith is the criterion and touchstone of things unseen. When one comes to her with a professed doctrine, saying, “In the world out of sight, the world of spirit and heaven, there exists such or such a truth, such or such a reality, such or such a being;” faith, the faculty by which we take account of the unseen, applies herself to the subject, puts it to the test of Scripture, asks its evidences and examines them, rejects the worthless, ratifies the true, and finally gives judgment upon the result and upon the issue. Faith has lived long enough to know--even from Scripture--how confident sometimes are “lying wonders,” how easy it is to find evidences for any folly, how far we might drift from the moorings of truth and duty if we gave heed to every doctrine which professed to rest (as St. Paul once expressed it)upon “spirit, or word, or letter as from us.” It is the office of Faith to test and to discriminate things unseen--to decide whether they belong to the revealed invisible, or to the conjectured, imagined, fancied invisible--and according to her judgment upon this question, so to determine the further question, Shall I accept, or shall I refuse? Faith takes God’s Word, and tests every professed truth by it. Faith is the touchstone of all matters lying in the region of spirit--she decides whether, for her, they are true or false, by seeing whether they agree, or whether they conflict, with her own one guide, which is the revelation, the inspiration, of God. This exercise of faith implies, then, one earlier. Before faith can test things unseen by the Word of God, she must have that Word, and she must know it. (Dean Vaughan.)

Things not seen:

“Things hoped for” are “things not seen.” St. Paul says in the 8th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, “Hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” But the “unseen” is not coextensive with the “hoped for.” There are “things not seen” elsewhere than in the future. Faith is wider than hope. Faith has other spheres than futurity. Whatever is invisible, whether past or present or future, is an object of faith. Every fact in history is apprehended by faith. Every past event, every record of birth and death, of battle and revolution, of dynasty founded and fallen, of historical person and character, can be grasped, can be accepted, only by faith. To be assured that certain portions of this island were successively occupied by Roman, by Saxon, by Dane, by Norman--that the established religion of this country was once Pagan, once Romanist, once Puritan--that a sovereign of this country was executed at Whitehall and buried at Windsor--that there ever was such a person as Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon--is an exercise, a strong exercise, of faith. That which is not at this moment seen and handled and tasted--that storm or that Shipwreck or that fire which the public paper tells of as having happened a month ago or happened yesterday, but which we ourselves did not see happen and can only know of by testimony--belongs, for that reason, to the realm of faith. The province of faith is coextensive with “things not seen.” And those unseen things may be either future, or past, or present. It is idle to deny that there are such. If we spoke only of earthly existences, how many of these, of the most certain of these, are at this moment out of our sigh! The friend from whom you heard yesterday--the person dearest to you in the world, not now by your side--it is faith, it is not sight, which represents that existence to you as real.But which of us, of the most sceptical of us, denies the fact of spiritual existences, spiritual agencies, which are of necessity, not by accident, but essentially, not now only, but always, things unseen? Faculties, habits, feelings, affections, motives, principles, processes and conditions of thought, laws of cause and consequence, souls and spirits of the dead and living, beings above us, a God of creation and providence, a Father and Saviour and Comforter--in whatever degree, to whatever extent, we have information or conviction of any of these, however confidently or however tentatively we have hold upon any of these, it is faith, faith alone, which grasps or deals with them--they too belong to that vast realm of the unseen, for the contemplation of which faith is the one faculty--that faith which is not only the assurance of things hoped for, but also--it is a far larger and wider term--“the evidence of things not seen.” (Dean Vaughan.)

The visions of faith:

Faith is a certain image of eternity; all things are present to it; things past and things to come are all so before the eyes of faith, that he in whose eyes that candle is enkindled beholds heaven as present, and sees how blessed a thing it is to die in God’s favour, and to be chimed to our grave with the music of a good conscience. Faith converses with the angels, and antedates the hymns of glory. Every man that hath this grace is as certain that there are glories for him, if he persevere in his duty, as if he had heard and sung the thanksgiving-song for the blessed sentence of doomsday. (Bp. Jeremy Taylor.)

The prospect of faith:

Faith, having seated itself upon the high tower and mountain--God’s omnipotency and all-sufficiency--hath a great prospect. It can look over all the world, and look into another world too. (W. Bridge.)

The tense of faith:

Faith altereth the tenses, and putteth the future into the present tense. (J. Trapp.)

Faith a telescope:

Faith is to sight and reason what the telescope is to the naked eye. By the use of this wondrous instrument the most distant planets are now made known to us in detail. A map of Mars has been published showing canal-like seas, islands and large mountains or table-lands covered with snow. Faith brings the distant near, makes the spiritual the most real, and gives us to dwell in heavenly places. (H. O. Mackey.)

Faith a corrective:

Men who see the invisible, estimate the more correctly the things temporal and the things eternal. (T. B.Stephenson, LL. D.)

Believing in the unseen:

Dr. Parker, preaching when a dense fog prevailed, said “the fog had taught him to believe in the unseen world more than ever before. Close to him there were oak trees that were hidden the previous day by mist. But he knew them to be there. Men might say, ‘If they were there we could see them.’ But they are there and you cannot see them! A schoolbay would have laughed in his face if he had said the trees did not exist because the fog hid them. Yet there are men going on to old age who deny the unseen world because they cannot see it. But the trees are there and so are the angels!” (Christian World.)

An appeal to the great names of the past:

We know the power of any appeal to the great names of our secular history. There is no scholar, however humble or obscure, whose exhausted energy is not renewed when he is reminded of the famous students of former times. The honours which cluster and thicken, as the ages roll by, sound the names of great poets, artists, philosophers, statesmen, stimulate the enthusiasm and sustain the energy of those who, in distant times and countries, strive for the same glory. When nations are struggling for freedom, it is not living patriotism alone which gives strength to their arms and daring to their hopes--the memory of the patriots of other lands and of other centuries kindles enthusiasm and inspires heroic endurance. Defeated, while living, in their conflicts with tyranny, they triumph gloriously after death. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

By it the elders obtained a good report

A good report obtained by faith

I. THE FATHERS UNDER THE LAW HAD THE SAME KIND OF FAITH THAT WE HAVE. The same promises; upon the same terms; through the same merit of the blood of Christ.

II. THE APOSTLES ASCRIBE THEIR RENOWN IN THE CHURCH TO THEIR FAITH. Though the private soldiers do worthily in the high places of the field, yet the general bears away the honour, he gets the battle and wins the day; so here, all graces have their use in the holy life, all do worthily in their order and place; love worketh, hope waiteth, patience endureth, zeal sparkleth, and obedience urgeth to duty; but faith bears away the prize, this is the chiefest pin and wheel in the whole frame of salvation. Partly because it is the grace of reception on our part, by which we receive all the influences of heaven, and partly because it directs and quickens all other graces. It feeds hope, it teaches patience to wait, it makes zeal to sparkle, it gives relief to self-denial, and encourageth obedience. Faith is like a silken string, which runs through the chain of pearl; or like the spirits that run with the blood throughout all the veins.

III. THE FAITH OF THE ELDERS WAS AN ACTIVE FAITH, that discovered itself by good fruits and gracious actions; otherwise it could not have brought them into credit with the Church. God only knows the heart. It is actions that discover their faith, and the strength of their assent.

IV. ONE OF THE REWARDS OF AN ACTIVE FAITH IS A GOOD REPORT.

1. For the reasons of God’s ordination and appointment. I shall touch upon those that are of a chief regard and consideration.

(1) That every necessary blessing may be adopted and taken into the covenant, and provision made against all inconveniences that may befal us in the way of religion. As the Psalmist saith of Zion (Psalms 48:12).

(2) Because of the great inconveniences of reproach and infamy, either to God and religion itself, or to good men.

(3) That God may retaliate with faith. Believers honour Him, therefore He will honour them (1 Samuel 2:30).

(4) That this may be a bait to draw in others to a liking of His ways.

2. In what manner doth the Lord dispense this privilege? And it is grounded upon an objection, that may be framed thus; the servants of God are often clouded with black reproaches, “They took away the spouse’s Song of Solomon 5:7), that is, her honour and name. David complains (Psalms 22:6). Therefore how doth God give in this recompense to the active faith? I answer, in several propositions.

(1)The blessing is not absolutely complete in this life. As long as there is sin we are liable to shame. A good name is an outward pledge of eternal glory. When sin is abolished then may we expect perfect glory. In a mixed estate we must look for mixed dispensations.

(2) The wicked are not competent judges when they judge of the faithful Luke 6:26). General applause can seldom be had without compliance, and without some sin; therefore it is spoken as a cursed thing to gratify all, and seek to draw respect from all. There is one rare instance in the third Epistle of John, verse12.

(3) We have the approbation of their consciences, though not the commendation of their lips; and their hearts approve when their mouths slander; and we have their reverence, though not their praise.

(4) There are some special seasons when God will vindicate His people from contempt. There is a resurrection of names as well as of persons.

3. Whether in the exercise of faith we may eye a good report? is not this vain-glory? I answer in four things.

(1) Our chief care must be to do the duty, and trust God with the blessing; this is the temper of a Christian.

(2) If we expect it as a blessing of the covenant, we must rather look for it from God than from men, expect it as the gift of His grace for our encouragement in the ways of religion.

(3) All the respect that we have to men is by a greater care of duty, to prevent undue surmises and suspicion (2 Corinthians 8:21).

(4) The glory of God and the credit of religion must be at the utmost end of all (Matthew 5:16).

Uses:

1. Prize this blessing; it is a sweet encouragement to you in the work of God. I observe that usually men first make shipwreck of a good name, then of a good conscience.

2. Be careful how you prejudice the good name of a believer; you cross God’s ordination. How ought you to tremble, when you go about to take off the crown which God hath put on their heads!

3. To press you to this active faith. There is great reason for it upon these grounds.

(1) Because there are so many censures abroad.

(2) Because there are so few good works abroad. (T. Manton, D. D.)

The renown of faith

I. INSTANCES OR EXAMPLES ARE THE MOST POWERFUL CONFIRMATIONS OF PRACTICAL TRUTH.

1. Who these “elders” were is put beyond dispute by the ensuing discourse. All true believers from the foundation of the world, or the giving of the first promise, unto the end of the dispensation of the Old Testament, are intended.

2. This testimony was given them in the Scriptures; that is, it is so in particular of many of them, and of the rest in the general rules of it.

II. THEY WHO HAVE A GOOD TESTIMONY FROM GOD SHALL NEVER WANT REPROACHES FROM THE WORLD.

III. IT IS FAITH ALONE WHICH FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD WAS THE MEANS AND WAY OF OBTAINING ACCEPTANCE WITH GOD.

IV. The faith of true believers from the beginning of the world, WAS FIXED ON THINGS FUTURE, HOPED FOR, AND INVISIBLE; THAT IS, ETERNAL LIFE AND GLORY IN AN ESPECIAL MANNER.

V. That faith whereby men please God ACTS ITSELF IN A FIXED CONTEMPLATION ON THINGS FUTURE AND INVISIBLE, from whence it derives encouragement and strength to endure and abide firm in profession, against all opposition and persecutions.

VI. HOWEVER MEN MAY BE DESPISED, VILIFIED, AND REPROACHED IN THE WORLD, YET IF THEY HAVE FAITH, IF THEY ARE TRUE BELIEVERS, THEY ARE ACCEPTED WITH GOD, AND HE WILL GIVE THEM A GOOD REPORT. (John Owen, D. D.)

Faith and its exploits

I. FAITH GREATENS MEN.

II. FAITH MIGHTILY AFFECTS OUR ORDINARY HUMAN LIFE.

III. FAITH IS POSSIBLE TO ALL CLASSES.

IV. FAITH IS CONSISTENT WITH VERY DIFFERENT DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE.

V. FAITH CAN MASTER INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTIES. Stormy seas forbid our passage; frowning fortifications bar our progress; mighty kingdoms defy our power; lions roar against us; fire lights its flaming barricade in our path; the sword, the armies of the alien, mockings, scourgings, bonds and imprisonment--all these menace our peace, darken our horizon, and try on us their power; but faith has conquered all these before, and it shall do as much again. Reckon on God’s faithfulness. Look not at the winds and waves, but at His character and will. Get alone with Him, steeping your heart and mind in His precious and exceeding great promises. Be obedient to the utmost limit of your light. Walk in the Spirit, one of whose fruits is faith. So shall you be deemed worthy to join this band, whose names and exploits run over from this page into the chronicles of eternity, and to share their glorious heritage. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

The best acquirement

1. All obtain some kind of report.

2. Some obtain a great report.

3. All may obtain a good report.

4. All ought to endeavour to obtain a good report.

5. A good report is not easily and at once obtained.

6. A good report is the best of all things that can be obtained. It is the only passport to heaven, and the only imperishable possession. (D. Thomas.)

The faith of the ancient worthies:

Christ crucified for us forms the great object of faith under the Christian dispensation. But the apostle’s words, no less than the facts of the case, forbid the supposition that all God’s testimony concerning His Son was embraced in the faith of these ancient worthies. In the case of Enoch, for example, the faith which the apostle’s argument attributes by implication to him is the general belief “that God is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” In Noah’s case no mention is made of any testimony or object of faith, except the Divine warning concerning the coming flood. In the case of Rahab, again, there is nothing in the book of Joshua, or in what the apostle says of her here, which can be construed as pointing to the Messiah. But supposing that in these cases, at least, their faith did not consciously embrace the Messiah, because the Messiah had not been revealed to it, it does not therefore follow either that they were saved in virtue of their faith as a meritorious act, or that they were saved independently of Christ. It is to be noticed, moreover, that the reason why their faith did not embrace so much as we are required to believe, was not because of anything defective in that faith, viewed as a mental act--the effects it produced forbid that supposition--but simply because of the want of a fuller revelation. They had not received the promise in its full and perfect form. Compared with that which we enjoy, their light was but as the dim dawn. And it is a striking testimony to the excellence of the principle, that a faith to which so little was revealed should sometimes so far surpass ours in the wonders which it wrought. Their faith is in fact a model for our own. It was proportioned to the degree of light which they possessed. They believed God’s Word in so far as God had spoken to them. It was not that they received only one part of the Divine testimony, and wilfully rejected another--true faith never does that, but receives with equal readiness and confidence whatsoever God says. To believe only so much of what God says as suits our wishes, or accords with our prejudices, or commends itself to our reason, is not to believe the Divine testimony. The result of our own judgment, or our own fancy, it is in no sense faith. He is in no sense a believer who receives only so much of God’s Word as pleases him, and gives the lie to all the rest. We insist the more on this because of the practical issues which it involves. Not only is our faith worthless, if it be not ready to give credence to all that God has said, but it will prove ineffectual for salvation, however much it may embrace, if it receive not the one truth which assures us of the freeness of the Divine love to us through Christ Jesus--that truth which constitutes the burden and substance of the gospel message. Even the faith of those earlier saints, limited as was the testimony presented to it, tended to this result. The revelations of God which they had received, declared or implied His righteousness and His friendship for man--a righteousness which would not allow sin to pass with impunity, and a friendship which promised mercy to those who would repent of sin and seek after God. Faith in these would naturally suggest to the believing soul the difficulty of their being exercised consistently with each other. But it would also convince them that, notwithstanding that difficulty, the Divine promise would be fulfilled. If the revelation given said how it was to be done, the same faith would receive its testimony. But if not--if the dim foreshadowing of the coming Saviour left them in ignorance of how God’s promise could be fulfilled consistently with His righteousness--faith would nevertheless assure them of its fulfilment, and calmly receive it and rely on it, leaving Him to determine how it was to be accomplished; for the province of faith is to receive what God says, simply because He says it, not to show how God’s Word can be true. In this way, we imagine, the faith of some of these earlier saints operated. Believing in God’s righteousness, and yet believing His promise to forgive and receive those who came to Him, they verbally and by sacrifice made confession of their sins and evil deserts, and yet trusted to Him to find a way of rendering the fulfilment of His promise consistent with His own righteousness. Thus their faith wrought in them reconciliation to, and trust in God, and thereby proved the means of their salvation. It will now appear how it is that, although they might be saved, without conscious and intelligent faith in Christ we cannot--how it is that the revelation we are favoured with places us in a position entirely different from theirs. It is because that revelation is a test of the true state of our minds in relation to God. Possessed of it, if we do not believe in Christ we reject the Divine testimony, and prove that we have no faith in anything which God says, but are still in a state of unbelief and rebellion and enmity. In fine, in the absence of a revelation, confidence in God and submission to His will were possible, though under the circumstances faith in Christ was impossible. Whereas, in possession of a revelation, the want of faith in Christ shuts us out from a state of confidence in God, and submission to His will, and must therefore debar us from the enjoyment of salvation. (W. Landels, D. D.)

Antiquity of faith:

The “for,” like so many “fors” in Scripture, rests upon a word or two unwritten. As if it were said, “A mighty grace”--“An ancient grace”--“A worldwide and an age-long grace”--“for by it”--or rather, “in it,” on the subject of it, on the strength of it--“the elders,” they of the old time, the saints and servants of God from the very beginning, “obtained a good report”; “were attested,” were borne witness of, received an approving testimony, from Him who alone is the faithful and true witness, God Himself in His holy Word. In many things they and we are widely separated. But this verse teaches us the unity of all ages and all countries in one single comprehensive principle. In this “faith,” the apostle says, to which I exhort you--his “faith” of which you will have so special a need in these coming days of trial and temptation--in this “faith” they lived and died to whom God in Scripture bore His emphatic testimony: in this, and no other--this same assurance of things not possessed but hoped for--this same discrimination of things not seen nor touched nor handled, yet existing in all the changeless reality of a world indestructible because immaterial, eternal because Divine. If we would ever know unity, we must seek it in the life of faith. Unbelief, like sin--unbelief, which is sin--is division, is disunion, at once. No two unbelievers, no two sinners, can be at one. Unity is to be found only in faith. Two men who are distinctly conscious of one God, one Lord, one Spirit--two men who are resolutely bent upon giving up everything contrary to the Divine Will as they read it--two men who are living holy lives in the pursuit of a life beyond death, everlasting and eternal--are at one with each other, whether they know it or not--for they are both living that life of faith in which the elders, like the men that are now, obtained a good report. (Dean Vaughan.)

Faith the foundation and strength of character

Character is man’s noblest possession, the accomplished design of renewing grace, the crown and glory of human life. By virtue of it a man takes rank with the peerage of heaven, and holds an estate in the general goodwill. It is much more true that character is power than that knowledge is power. History teaches us that moral forces are the real rulers of the world. The influence of wealth is feeble in comparison with the influence of tried worth. No one is shut out from obtaining this best of all distinctions, this most priceless of all possessions. Every one should aim to deserve a good report. The text admonishes us how it is to be obtained. “By faith” the elders attained that excellence of character which gave them favour in the sight of God and man. Faith is declared to be the foundation and strength of character.

I. FAITH MAKES MEN MASTERS OF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES. There are some persons who seem to have no character of their own. When hemmed in by moral restraints and moving in an atmosphere of religion, they exhibit a negative colourless goodness; but let them be thrown into a tide of dissipation and they yield without a struggle, and go with the multitude to do evil. The first truth, then, for faith to grasp is this: “I am a spiritual and immortal being, with power to choose my own lot, determine my own course, and form my own character. If I allow myself to be the sport of circumstances, I shall be unstable as water and never excel; but if I have faith in the invisible might of energy, and in the ultimate success of perseverance, I shall obtain the prize of my high calling.”

II. NEXT COMES THE CONVICTION OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD FOR THE USE OF THIS POWER. A great many wise decisions and virtuous struggles with temptation go to the building up of a good character. Human nature is a marshy soil for such a structure, and needs a great deal done under ground and out of sight before its ,stability can be secured. There must be a strong foundation of moral concrete, of conscientiousness. But this cannot be laid without frequent appeals to conscience, and its judgments will be wavering and obscure unless faith unstops the ear to hear the sanction of God’s voice. It is a sheet-anchor to a man in temptation, if he have sufficient faith in God’s presence and authority to make him say, “How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” Again, faith in God as our omnipotent Father and the Judge of all, creates a habit of referring everything to conscience. Believe that for every opinion you adopt you will be called to answer before God, and you will be careful not to take up hastily with any, and not to hold them in the clenched fists of prejudice.

III. MOST MEN WHO HAVE ATTAINED A GOOD REPORT HAVE HAD A DEFINITE PURPOSE IN LIFE, AND A CLEARLY DEFINED NOTION OF THE PLACE GOD INTENDED THEM TO FILL. Our forefathers had a deep impression of the Divine hand shaping the course of an ordinary man’s life; hence they spoke of his business or occupation as his “calling.” So long as a man’s trade is useful to the community, fitted to serve the comfort or refinement of society, he has as much reason to believe that God has called him to it as he has to believe that God designed the earth to bring forth food for man’s support. And, depend upon it, man will turn out all the better work, and do his duty with all the greater care, for believing that God accepts it as a service to Himself. In every walk of life we shall find scope for a career of usefulness and happiness, provided we buy up its opportunities. To begin with the duty lying nearest to us is the way to fulfil our mission.

IV. FAITH IN THE IMPERISHABLE WORTH OF TRUTH is another most necessary element in the formation of an honourable character. Integrity in word and deed is the backbone of character, and loyal adherence to veracity its most prominent characteristic. Seldom has a finer eulogium been pronounced upon any man than was spoken by the late Duke of Wellington on the occasion of the death of Sir Robert Peel. He said: “I was long connected with him in public life. We were both in the councils of our sovereign together, and I had long the honour to enjoy his private friendship. In all the course of my acquaintance with him, I never knew a man in whose truth and justice I had greater confidence or in whom I saw a more invariable desire to promote the public service. In the whole course of my communication with him I never knew an instance in which he did not show the strongest attachment to truth; and I never saw, in the whole course of my life, the smallest reason for suspecting that he stated anything which he did not firmly believe to be the fact.”

V. BY FAITH, FEELING THEIR OWN WEAKNESS, THE EXCELLENT OF THE EARTH LAID HOLD ON THE STRENGTH OF GOD. In reference to all the distinctive traits of Christian character, we may say without the slightest qualification, “Severed from Christ, and without faith in His helpful Spirit, you can do nothing.” These heavenly fruits of character do not grow on the wild olive-tree of humanity, but only after it has been grafted into the good olive-tree, the Lord Jesus Christ. They imply the possession of so much which a man who has only the prudential virtues, after the fashion of the world, is wholly destitute of. They imply faith in God’s omniscience and care and a hope of eternal glory; they imply convictions which have broken the heart, made it jealous for God’s honour, humbled it at the feet of Divine mercy, and inspired it with a love of peace and gentleness. Without these convictions and sentiments such traits of character are impossible. There is neither motive for them nor meaning in them. They are the fruits of the Spirit, and only possible, therefore, in those who have the Spirit. But in every age God has given His Holy Spirit to such as sought His aid. (E. W.Shalders, B. A.)

The roll-call of the illustrious dead:

Auvergne, a Breton warrior, called Grenadier of France, died fighting for his country. As a memorial, his comrades decided that his name should still stand on the rolls. It was regularly called, and a comrade answered for him, “Dead on the field.” So is Hebrews 11:1., a roll-call of the victorious dead, a regimental register of God’s heroes.

The victories of faith

In almost every capital of Europe there are varieties of triumphal arches or columns upon which are recorded the valiant deeds of the country’s generals, its emperors, or its monarchs. You will find, in one case, the thousand battles of a Napoleon recorded, and in another you find the victories of a Nelson pictured. It seems, therefore, but right that faith, which is the mightiest of the mighty, should have a pillar raised to its honour, upon which its valiant deeds should be recorded. The apostle undertook to raise the structure, and he erected a most magnificent pillar in the chapter before us. It recites the victories of faith. (C. H. Spurgeon.)