The Life of Faith

Fifth Sermon on a Pauline Text

THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY
FAITH. — Rom. i. 17.

THE Bible, both Old Testament and New, is full of faith and the life of faith. The Bible may be said to be a book for believers and for believers alone. You need not open the Bible unless you are already a believer, or are willing, by its help, to become a believer. For, from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is written by believers, about believers, and for believers. The Hebrew prophets preached all their sermons to believers, and the Hebrew psalmists composed all their psalms for the use of believers. And, coming down to New Testament times, Jesus Christ Himself began His life on earth by being nothing else but a believer. All His life on earth he went about looking everywhere for believers. And as often as He found another believer, that gave Him meat to eat that other men knew not of. And open Paul where you please, and you have faith and the life of faith in every epistle of his. If any epistle has not faith and the life of faith in it, you may be sure it is no true epistle of the Apostle Paul. Paul himself, after the Man Jesus Christ, was the greatest believer that ever lived. And he will make you the greatest believer now living, if you will give your days and nights to nothing else but to his epistles. And. if you are well advised, you will do that. For there is no other occupation of the mind for one moment to be compared with the study of Paul on the objects of faith and on the life of faith. It is the most intellectual of all studies, and it is the most spiritual of all studies, and it is the only study that you will take up again in heaven just at the point where you laid it down at the moment of your death on earth. Faith, in all her objects, and in all her exercises, is the very queen of studies. All other arts and sciences, all other literatures and philosophies, all other pursuits and accomplishments are, at their very best, but the companions and the handmaidens of faith.

And then, faith is such a sovereign that she has a whole universe of things under her sole and sovereign sway. As the whole world of things tangible is wholly put under our sense of touch; and as the whole world of things visible is wholly given up to our sense of sight; and as that other world of things audible belongs to our sense of hearing, and to that sense alone: so is the whole unseen world, and all that it contains, absolutely delivered over to our faith. So much is this the case, that the whole spiritual and eternal world has as good as no existence to him who has not faith. In the words of inspiration — they have no substance and no evidence to him who has not faith. Almighty God, His Son Jesus Christ, the atoning blood and the justifying righteousness of Jesus Christ; heaven and its everlasting blessedness; and all the things that are akin to these things, have no existence to him who has not faith. And no man needs Holy Scripture to tell him that. We all know that in ourselves. There are times with us all when to us there is neither God nor Christ, nor heaven nor hell. And again, there are other times when there is nothing in all the world but just these unseen things. All these things come and go to us just according to our faith. Nothing could be a better definition and description of faith than just that famous definition and description, that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Now, the just shall live by faith, says the Apostle in the text. Yes. But who, exactly, are the just, and where are they to be found among sinful men? My brethren, the only just man is the man who has been justified. He is the same man whose mouth was once stopped and which has never again been opened to justify himself, and who has therefore been taken by God and has been justified and accepted in His Son Jesus Christ. But what exactly is it to be justified .? What is justification? Justification is an act of GocCs free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to ns and received by faith alone. That, then, is the just man of the text. There is no other just man, nor will ever be. The only just man is the justified man of the Epistle to the Romans and the Shorter Catechism. And he will know, and will be sure, that he is a justified man just according as he lives by faith.

And he lives, for one thing, by his faith in his Bible. The Bible is more to every believer than his necessary food. O how love I Thy law! is his constant ejaculation. It is my meditation all the day. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. The Psalms are written in letters of gold to the eye of faith, and the Epistle to the Romans is the very marrow of lions to the taste of faith. Show me a believing man, and I will show you a justified man, and, withal, a man who is never out of his Bible. What else would you have him to read? I would like to hear you urging some of your favourite reading on him. I would like you to tell him where else but in his Bible such faith as his could be fed. Where else could he get songs for the house of his pilgrimage? And shoes for his feet, and a staff for his hand? And his whole furniture for his life of faith, and for his death of victory? Yes: depend upon it, the just man will live, and move, and have his whole being, in his Bible, and in books that have been drawn out of his Bible.

But the just man’s Bible is all that to him, because Christ is in his Bible. To me to live is Christ, is PauFs constant protestation. Christ is everything to Paul: absolutely everything. Christ is made of God to Paul wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. Name anything to Paul that you think he needs; claim anything from Paul that you think he owes you; put Paul into any position you like, even into prison, even into death and hell itself, and Paul is, that moment, complete in Christ. But, while all fulness dwells in Christ, it is His blood that Paul’s faith is found dealing with oftenest. Never had any man’s faith a bolder scope, or a vaster sweep, than Paul’s faith in Christ. But it is on Christ’s blood that Paul’s faith oftenest gazes, and always puts its trust. ‘The object of faith,’ says Dr. Christian Baur in his great book on Paul ‘is narrowed in Paul stage by stage. And in proportion as this is done, Paul’s faith becomes more intense and more inward. From mere theoretical assent Paul’s faith becomes a practical trust, which has for its one object the blood of Christ.’ Exactly true, and excellently said. There is no limit to the scope and sweep of Paul’s faith. Everything that Christ is as the God-Man; everything that Christ has done, is doing, or ever will do, is all Paul’s by faith. But, here and now, it is His blood that is the one thing needful to Paul, and compared with which, there is nothing else for one moment to be called needful. Paul preached Christ in all His offices as He has never been preached since. But all the time Paul was such a sinner, and he was preaching to such sinners, that Christ crucified was his one determination as a preacher. They are his own words: ‘For I am determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.’ Paul not only at the gate of Damascus, but even in the apostolic pulpit, was always in himself a condemned man. But who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth the winefat? Lo! this is He whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. This is He on whom the Lord laid the iniquity of us all. Yes: every day, and in every place, Paul’s past sins, and his ever-present sinfulness, would be a millstone about his neck; he would be beside himself; he would be in hell already, but for the blood of Christ. Most true, the just man lives by his faith in his Bible. But that is so because his Bible is so full to him of the blood of Christ.

Be believers, then, my brethren. Practise believing continually, and in connection with everything that happens to you. If you have been great transgressors in the past, and if you are still great sinners in your heart, be correspondingly great believers in Christ. Be much in the believers Bible, and be less and less in every other book that does not draw its inspiration out of the believer’s Bible. But, especially, let your faith in the blood of Christ prosper and grow stronger and stronger every day. Go about through life believing in the blood of Christ at all times and in all places. As your sinfulness pours out of your heart upon you continually, never stopping, but running the more the more you try to stop it; so there is over against your sinful heart a fountain filled with blood, and that fountain will flow as long as your sinful heart flows. Have faith in that blood, then. Live by faith in that blood. And when you come to die, die believing in that blood. And, so dying, you will rise again believing for the last time. For at their deaths the souls of believers are made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory. And then, at the resurrection, believers, being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. Amen.