Sermon IV. The steadfastness of the promises, and the sinfulness of staggering.
“He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.” — Rom. iv. 20.
In the first chapters of this epistle, the apostle, from Scripture and the constant practice of all sorts of men of all ages, Jews and Gentiles, wise and barbarians, proves all the world, and every individual therein, to “have sinned and come short of the glory of God;” — and not only so, but that it was utterly impossible that, by their own strength, or by virtue of any assistance communicated, or privileges enjoyed, they should ever attain to a righteousness of their own that might be acceptable unto God.
Hereupon he concludes that discourse with these two positive assertions:—
First, That for what is past, “every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God, chap. iii. 19.
Secondly, For the future, though they should labour to amend their ways, and improve their assistances and privileges to a better advantage than formerly, “yet by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God,” verse 20.
Now, it being the main drift of the apostle, in this epistle, and in his whole employment, to manifest that God hath not shut up all the sons of men hopeless and remediless under this condition, he immediately discovers and opens the rich supply which God, in free grace, hath made and provided for the delivery of his own from this calamitous estate, even by the righteousness of faith in Christ; which he unfoldeth, asserteth, proves, and vindicates from objections, to the end of the 3d chapter.
This being a matter of so great weight, as comprising in itself the sum of the gospel wherewith he was intrusted, — the honour and exaltation of Christ, which above all he desired, — the great design of God to be glorious in his saints, — and, in a word, the chief subject of the embassage from Christ to him committed (to wit, that they who neither have, nor by any means can attain, a righteousness of their own, by the utmost of their workings, may yet have that which is complete and unrefusable in Christ, by believing); he therefore strongly confirms it in the 4th chapter, by testimony and example of the Scripture, with the saints that were of old; — thereby also declaring, that though the manifestation of this mystery were now more fully opened by Christ from the bosom of the Father, yet indeed this was the only way for any to appear in the presence of God, ever since sin entered the world.
To make his demonstrations the more evident, he singleth out one for an example who was eminently known, and confessed by all to have been the friend of God, — to have been righteous and justified before him, and thereon to have held sweet communion with him all his days; to wit, Abraham, the father according to the flesh of all those who put in the strongest of all men for a share in righteousness, by the privileges they did enjoy and the works they did perform.
Now, concerning him the apostle proves abundantly, in the beginning of the 4th chapter, that the justification which he found, and the righteousness he attained, was purely that, and no other, which he before described; to wit, a righteousness in the forgiveness of sins through faith in the blood of Christ. Yea, and that all the privileges and exaltations of this Abraham, which made him so signal and eminent among the saints of God as to be called “The father of the faithful,” were merely from hence, that this righteousness of grace was freely discovered and fully established unto him; — an enjoyment being granted him in a peculiar manner by faith of that promise wherein the Lord Christ, with the whole spring of the righteousness mentioned, was enwrapped. This the apostle pursues, with sundry and various inferences and conclusions, to the end of verse 17, chapter 4.
Having laid down this, in the next place he gives us a description of that faith of Abraham whereby he became inheritor of those excellent things, from the adjuncts of it; — that as his justification was proposed as an example of God’s dealing with us by his grace; so his faith might be laid down as a pattern for us in the receiving that grace.
Now, this he doth from, —
First, The foundation of it, whereon it rested.
Secondly, The matter of it, what he believed.
Thirdly, The manner of it, or how he believed.
First, From the bottom and foundation on which it rested, — viz., the omnipotency or all-sufficiency of God, whereby he was able to fulfil whatever he had engaged himself unto by promise, and which he called him to believe, verse 17, “He believed God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.”