Faith: Life
‘BEHOLD, HIS SOUL WHICH IS LIFTED UP IS NOT UPRIGHT IN HIM: BUT THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY HIS FAITH.” —
Habakkuk ii. 4.
“FOR THEREIN IS THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD REVEALED FROM FAITH TO FAITH: AS IT IS WRITTEN, THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.11 — Romans. 17.
41 BUT THAT NO MAN IS JUSTIFIED BY THE LAW IN THE SIGHT OF GOD, IT IS EVIDENT: FOR THE JUST SHALL LIVE
BY FAITH.” — Oalaiians iii. 11.
“NOW THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH: BUT IF ANY MAN DRAW BACK, MY SOUL SHALL HAVE NO PLEASURE IN
HIM.” — Hebrews x. 88.
WHEN the Spirit of God frequently repeats him self, he thereby appeals for special attention. A doctrine so often declared must be of the first importance.
A doctrine so often declared should be constantly preached.
A doctrine so often declared should be unhesitatingly received by each one of our hearers.
I. WE WELL TREAT THE FOUR TEXTS AS ONE.
The teaching is clear. “The just shall live by his filth.”
1. Life is received by the faith which makes a man
just. A man begins to live by a full acquittal from jondemnation, and from penal death, so soon as he believes in Jesus.
A man begins to live as one raised out of spiritual death so soon as he has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
No form of works, or profession, or knowledge, or even of natural feelings, can prove him to be an absolved and quickened man; but faith does this.
2. Life is sustained by the faith which keeps a
man just.
He who is forgiven and quickened lives ever afterwards as he began to live — namely, by faith. Neither his feelings, nor devotions, nor acquirements ever become his trust: he still looks out of himself to Jesus. He is nothing except so far as he is a believer. He lives by faith as to all the forms of his
life, —
As a child, and as a servant; As a pilgrim progressing, and as a warrior
contending;
As a pensioner enjoying, and as an heir
expecting.
He lives by faith in every condition, —
In joy and in sorrow; in wealth and in
poverty;
In strength and in weakness; in laboring
and in languishing; in life and in death.
He lives best when faith is at its best, even
though in other respects he may be sorely put to it. He lives the life of Christ mo*t blessedly when most intensely he believes in Christ.
Hearty belief in God, his Son, his promises, his grace, is the soul’s life, neither can anything take its place. “Believe and live” is a standing precept both for saint and sinner. “Now abideth faith.” 1 Cor. xiii. 13.
II. WE WILL TKBAT THE FOUR TEXTS SEPARATELY.
If we read with precision, we shall see that Scripture contains no repetitions. The context gives freshness of meaning to each apparent repetition.
1. Our first text (Hab. ii. 4) exhibits faith as
enabling a man to live on in peace and
humility, while as yet the promise has not
come to its maturity. While waiting we
live by faith, and not by sight.
We are thus able to bear up under the temporary triumphs of the wicked. See the first chapter of Habakkuk’s prophecy.
We are thus preserved from proud impatience at delay.
We are thus filled with delight in confident expectation of good things to come.
2. Our second text (Rom. i. 17) exhibits faith as
working salvation from the evil which is in the world through lust. The chapter in which it stands presents &n awful view of human nature, and implies that only faith in the gospel can bring us life in the form of — 2 — 20
Mental enlightenment of life as to the true
God: Rom. i. 19 — 23. Moral purity of life: Rom. i. verse 24, and
onward. Spiritual life and communion with that which
is divine and holy.
Naturally men are dead and corrupt. The
law reveals our death, see Rom. iii. 10 — 20;
but the gospel imparts spiritual life to those
who receive it by faith. 8. Our third text (Gal. iii. 11) exhibits faith as
bringing to us that justification which saves
us from the sentence of death. Nothing can be plainer, more positive, more
sweeping than this declaration that no man
is justified before God except by faith.
Both the negative and the positive are
plain enough. 4. Our fourth text (Heb. x. 38) exhibits faith as
the life of final perseverance.
There is need of faith while waiting for
heaven (verses 32 — 36). The absence of such faith would cause as to
draw back (verse 38). That drawing back would be a fatal sign. That drawing back can never occur, for faith
saves the soul from ail hazards, keeping its
face heavenwards even to the end.
What can you do who have no faith?
In what other way can you be accepted with
God?
On what ground can fou excuse your unbelief in your God?
Will you perish sooner than believe him?
BRBVIATES.
The Jews in the Talmud have the saying, “The whole law was given to Moses at Sinai, in six hundred and thirteen precepts.” David, in the fifteenth Psalm, brings them all within the compass of eleven. Isaiah brings them to six (Isaiah xxxiii. 15); Micah to three (Micah vi. 8); Isaiah, again, to two (Isaiah lvi.); Habakkuk to this one, “The just shall live by his faith.” — Liglitfoot.
The soul is the life of the body. Faith is the life of the soul. Christ is the life of faith. — Flavel.
Inscribed upon the portal from afar
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,
Legible only by the light they give
Stand the soul-quickening words — BELIEVE AND LIVE.
To believe God is not a little thing: it is the index of a heart reconciled to God, and the token of true spirituality of mind; it is the essence of true worship, and the root of sincere obedience. He who believes his God in spite of his sins, does him more honor than cherubim and seraphim in their continual adoration. A little thing faith! How is it then that unbelief is so great a crime that it is marked out for reprobation as the one damning evil which shuts men out of heaven? Whatever else you put in the second place, give faith the lead; it is not a vain thing, for it is your life.