Romans 4:16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed… I. THE FACT. 1. It is of faith. And what is faith? It is taking God at His Word, and acting upon that by trusting in Him. Some of the Puritans used to divide it into three parts. (1) Self-renunciation, which is, perhaps, rather a preparation for faith than faith itself. (2) Reliance, in which a man trusts, and leaves his soul in the Saviour's hands. (3) Appropriation, by which a man takes to himself that which God presents in the promise. We shall, however, better understand what faith is as we consider — 1. Abraham's case. (1) He believed the promise of God firmly and practically. He was in Chaldea when the Lord promised to give him a land and a seed, and straightway he went forth, not knowing whither he went. When he came into Canaan he had no settled resting place, but still believed that the land wherein he sojourned as a stranger was his own. God promised to give him a seed, and he waited till he was a hundred years old and Sarah ninety when Isaac was born. Nor did he doubt when the Lord bade him take Isaac and offer him up as a sacrifice. (2) He had an eye to the central point of the promise, the Messiah. When the Lord said that He would make him a blessing, and in him should all the nations of the earth be blessed, I do not suppose Abraham saw all the fulness of that marvellous word; but our Lord declares, "Abraham saw My day and was glad."(3) He considered no difficulties whatever (vers. 18, 19). These were terrible difficulties; they were for God to consider, and not for him. (4) He gave glory to God (ver. 20). God had promised, and he treated the Lord's promise with becoming reverence. He knew that Jehovah is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent. Abraham glorified the truth of God, and at the same time he glorified His power. It belongs to puny man to speak more than he can do; but is anything too hard for the Lord? (5) He rested upon the Lord alone (ver. 21). There was nothing whatever in his house, his wife, himself, or anywhere else, which could guarantee the fulfilment of the promise. He had only God to look to, and what could a man have more? And this is the kind of faith which God loves and honours, which wants no signs, evidences, or other buttresses to support the word of the Lord. Dictum! Factum! These twain are one with the Most High. 2. The faith of every man who is saved must be of this character. When we are saved — (1) We take the promise of God and depend upon it. (2) We believe in God over the head of great difficulties. If it was hard for Abraham to believe that a son should be born unto him, methinks it is harder for a sinner to believe the hopeful things which the gospel prophesies unto him. (a) Can the gospel message be true to such a worthless rebel as I am? Despite the trepidation of the awakened spirit, the Holy Spirit enables it to quiet itself with the firm persuasion that God for Christ's sake doth put away its sin. (b) Another miracle is also believed in, namely, regeneration. This is quite as great an act of faith as Abraham to believe in the birth of a child by parents who were advanced in years. The faith which saves believes in Jesus and obtains power to become children of God and strength to conquer sin. (c) Does it not seem incredible that such feeble, foolish creatures as we should continue in faith? Yet this we must do; and the faith which saves enables us to believe that we shall persevere, for it is persuaded that the Redeemer is able to keep that which we have committed unto Him. (d) We believe, according to God's promise, that we shall one day be without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." "Without fault before the throne of God." But how is this to be? Surely our confidence is, that He who has promised it is able to perform it. (3) This saving faith rests in the power of God as manifested in Jesus (vers. 24, 25). It is not to us a thing incredible that God should raise the dead; we therefore believe that because God has raised the dead He hath raised us also from our death in sin, and that He will raise our bodies too. II. THE FIRST REASON WHY GOD HAS CHOSEN TO MAKE SALVATION BY FAITH, "that it might be of grace." He might have willed to make the condition of salvation a mitigated form of works. If He had done so it would not have been of grace. As water and oil will not mix, and as fire and water will not lie down side by side in quiet, so neither will the principle of merit and the principle of free favour. Grace and faith are congruous, and will draw together in the same chariot, but grace and merit pull opposite ways, and therefore God has not chosen to yoke them together. 1. In Abraham's case, inasmuch as he received the blessing by faith, it is very evident that it was of grace. No man thinks of Abraham as a self-justifying person, saying, "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men." His name is not "the father of the innocent," but "the father of the faithful." 2. Inasmuch as we are saved by faith, every believer is made to see for himself that, in his own instance, it is grace. Believing is such a self-renunciating act that no man who looks for eternal life thereby ever talked about his own merits. He cannot get away from simple faith, for the moment he attempts to do so he feels the ground going from under him. 3. Through the prominence given to faith, the truth of salvation by grace is so conspicuously revealed that even the outside world are compelled to see it, though the only result may be to make them cavil. 4. Moreover, faith never did clash with grace yet. When the sinner comes and trusts to Christ, and Christ saith to him, "I forgive thee freely by My grace," faith says, "O Lord, that is what I want." "But if I give thee everlasting life it will not be because thou deservest it, but for Mine own name's sake." Faith replies, "O Lord, that also is precisely as I desire." 5. Faith is the child of grace. The believer knows that his faith is not a seed indigenous to the soil of his heart, but an exotic planted there by Divine wisdom; and he knows too that if the Lord does not nourish it his faith will die like a withered flower. Faith is begotten and sustained by a power not less mighty than that which raised our Lord from the dead. III. A FURTHER REASON. "To the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed." For — 1. It could not have been sure to us Gentiles by the law, because we were not under the law of Moses at all. The Jew, coming under the law, might have been reached by a legal method, but we who are Gentiles would have been altogether shut out. Therefore grace chooses to bless us by faith in order that the Gentile may partake of the blessing of the covenant as well as the Jew. 2. The other method has failed already in every case. We have all broken the law already, and so have put ourselves beyond the power of ever receiving blessing as a reward of merit. What remaineth, then, if we are to be saved at all, but that it should be of faith? 3. It is of faith that it might be sure. Under the system of works nothing is sure. Suppose you were under a covenant of salvation by works, and you had fulfilled those works up till now, yet you would not be sure. But after all you have done for these long years you may lose everything before you have finished your next meal. But see the excellence of salvation by grace, for when you reach the ground of faith you are upon terra firma. 4. If the promise had been made to works there are some of the seed to whom most evidently it never could come. If salvation to the dying thief must come by works, how can he be saved? but he believed, cast a saving eye upon the Lord Jesus and said, "Lord, remember me," and the promise was most sure to him, for the answer was, "Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." (C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, |
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