Translated By: Archtelos Intelligence
Chapters
Hallelu-jah
Or, Praise of the LORD, Concerning the Covenant of Grace.
An exposition of the eighth Psalm, laid as the foundation for a treatise upon the Covenant of Grace: its end, the misery of man, its origin in God's eternal decree, the Mediator Jesus Christ, its nature, the offer of it through the gospel, saving faith, the marks of a true and a false covenant partner, the privileges and duties of covenant partners, and the administration of the covenant under the Old and New Testaments.
By Wilhelmus à Brakel, in his lifetime a faithful minister of the Gospel.
Rotterdam. 1689.
To the Reader
With the selling-out of the first printing, the disputation that it had contained also came to an end, as was noted in the preface to other printings. Nevertheless the printer was eager to print it again — even with the omission of the disputation that was taken away — provided that I would fill that space with some practical material, so as to keep the treatise the same size.
I would rather have written an entirely new treatise than insert such a thing and thereby break the coherence, or as it were force the one part upon the other; but time did not permit me to do so. And though I could not do that, I still preferred to add something rather than let the whole little treatise — which I observed to have been to edification — depart from the world once more.
I took the pen in hand only to fill again the five or six leaves that the removed disputation had occupied; but as I wrote, the material multiplied, and since the printer kept on, it all had to go through the press just as it came.
Nevertheless, if one is not too exacting in one's searching, a good order and coherence may be found in it, if one takes it thus: that the exposition of Psalm 8 is the introduction and the foundation of what follows, and that this treatise further contains a discourse on the COVENANT OF GRACE, of which is shown: I. Its ultimate end, treated throughout in a practical manner, which is the glorification of God, Chapters 2 and 3. II. The wretched nature of man, the one party taken up into the covenant of grace, Chapter 4. III. The cause and origin of the covenant, which is God's eternal decree, Chapter 5. IV. The Mediator of the covenant, Jesus Christ, of whose humiliation and exaltation is spoken, Chapters 6 and 7. V. The nature of the covenant, Chapter 8. VI. The offer of the covenant through the gospel, Chapter 9. VII. The passing over into that covenant by faith, Chapter 10. VIII. Marks of a true and of a false covenant partner, Chapter 11. IX. The excellencies of covenant partners, consisting in their a. adoption as children, Chapter 12; b. justification, Chapter 13; c. sanctification, Chapter 14; d. riches and exaltation in this life, and glory in eternal life, Chapter 15. X. The duties of covenant partners, which are: 1. to glorify God; 2. cheerful joy; 3. godliness; 4. Christian love; 5. Christian peace; 6. the Christian struggle, Chapter 16. XI. The administration of the covenant across three periods, in which the points of controversy now current are treated with the greatest gentleness, Chapter 17. This last chapter was, in the second and third printings, the ninth chapter; but because it is long and contains disputations, we have in this printing placed it at the back, so as to keep the practical material together.
We observe that among many other errors, two in particular go about in the Church of the Netherlands. The one is that men rest content with the letter, imagining that godliness consists solely in knowledge of the coherence of the Bible; the other, that men exercise devotion and godly stirrings within, and outward virtue, without any grounded knowledge of the truths. We therefore have great inclination to make of this treatise an entire work — a discourse on the covenant of grace, and God's dealing with souls in leading them to, and governing them within, that covenant, with respect to enlightenment, strength, weaknesses, joy and sorrow, health and sickness, and so forth — so as to bring a person forward in an understanding way, and with greater strength and steadfastness in faith, without hanging in delays and doubts, to proceed to do greater things. We pray that the Lord would grant us time and fitness for this, to accomplish it yet before our death, since we have observed that this little work has not been unblessed. More we have not to say to you. Read this little treatise with a heart that sets God before itself, that pictures to itself the immortality of the soul, and that has a deep impression of death, judgment, heaven, and hell. May the Almighty and gracious God strengthen it by His Spirit. Amen.
Your willing servant in the Lord,
Rotterdam, the 17th of February, 1689.
W. à Brakel
Table of Contents
I. Chapter 1. The exposition of the eighth Psalm, showing in particular that this psalm is not a prophecy of the state of the church in the New Testament — and especially that verses 2 and 10 do not describe its first and last state — but a holy wonder of a child of God at the glory of God showing itself in the preservation and government both of the whole earth and, especially, of His children in Christ Jesus.
II. Chapter 2. On verse 1. Shows that every Christian must glorify God: this duty confirmed by example and command; the exercise of it stirred up by four motives; the neglect of this duty lamented, both in the whole world outside the church — among hypocrites who deceive themselves with a show of glorifying God — and among the godly themselves; and the manner of exercising this duty set forth in three acts.
III. Chapter 3. On verses 2, 3, and 4. Shows that angels, heathen, and the godly see God and His glory in created things, and that God points man toward this; that God and His glory are seen in the creatures, whether by ascending from below up to the Creator, or by the soul beholding the creatures as if from above; how God is seen in little children and in the fabric of heaven and earth; and that in these His power, wisdom, and goodness are seen and glorified.
IV. Chapter 4. On verse 5. Shows that man is wretched, since God Himself so declares him; that it is difficult to know oneself as a wretched Enosh and to bear this in every circumstance; and sets forth man's wretchedness — first, in his sinfulness; second, his liability to punishment; third, his inability to satisfy for sin or to convert himself; fourth, his loathsomeness; fifth, his unbearableness.
V. Chapter 5. On verse 6, "that You are mindful of him and visit him." Shows the profitableness of believingly considering that God's remembrance is the first cause of man's salvation; that this mystery must not be tested against human understanding; that all of God's ways are holy; that God is sovereign and free in all He does; that the Lord does not work as man works; that God's aim is the glorification of His own name; that from all eternity, without regard to their qualities, God has been mindful of certain particular persons, as distinguished from others, so as surely to bring them to salvation; how all who are the object of this eternal remembrance ought to weigh it with understanding, rejoice in it, comfort themselves with it against sin, be strengthened by it in prayer, be stirred up by it to sanctification, and glorify God for it; how the doubting and weak in faith ought to conduct themselves in this matter; how natural and godless men ought to make use of this truth; and the actual visitation of God with blessings.
VI. Chapter 6. On Christ's humiliation, verse 6. Sets forth the mystery of the Holy Trinity; the covenant of redemption between the Father and Immanuel; what regard and working the Surety had, before His incarnation, toward His children in the Old Testament; the degrees and acts of His humiliation; and that these must be considered, in particular, as to their necessity, their power, and Christ's love.
VII. Chapter 7. On Christ's exaltation. Shows the truth of His exaltation in resurrection and ascension; what power the consideration of these two degrees ought to have upon our souls, for sanctification and joy, both with respect to Christ and to His own; that Christ and His glory must be considered both as God and as Mediator; and the reasons for considering Christ in His glory — that it is the most glorious object for the understanding, the most delightful sight, and that it sanctifies the soul, particularly in six ways.
VIII. Chapter 8. On the covenant of grace. After pointing out certain misconceptions, shows the force of the word in the Hebrew, Greek, and Dutch tongues; that God deals with man, and man with God, by way of covenant; the causes or covenant-makers; the conditions of this covenant; the Surety; the form or proper essence; the end; the properties; the seals; and a description drawn up from the matters treated.
IX. Chapter 9. On the offer of the covenant of grace, in particular to everyone living under its administration. Shows that the gospel is the truth, which can be confirmed upon the human heart only by the Holy Spirit as the means thereto — establishing the soul in certain matters known to all, the spiritual nature of the gospel's contents, the disclosure of the mystery of Scripture, the fulfillment of prophecies, the power of the gospel in subduing so many nations in so short a time without force, and its power upon the heart of every believer; that the covenant of grace is offered in particular to every person living under its administration — proved by comparison with the barbarous heathen, by the hearing of the voice of teachers and of God's own words speaking in Scripture, by the fact that many condemned persons are called and invited, by the general offer to whoever thirsts, by the fact that Christ was first offered even to those who reject Him, by the dreadfulness of unbelief as a sin, by exhortations to faith and conversion, and by the dreadful punishment upon unbelievers; and finally resolves a difficulty raised by a weak believer.
X. Chapter 10. On entering into, or passing over into, the covenant of grace, that is, the receiving of the Surety Jesus Christ by faith. Shows the causes of carelessness in various sorts of people, namely ignorance, fleshly desire, false imagination, and lukewarm sloth; several motives to proceed — the misery of man without Christ, Christ's fullness, the offer of Christ and His fullness to every one, that no one comes in vain, that not coming is an abominable sin, and the command of God; the removal of hindrances — ignorance, unwillingness, fearfulness because of sin and lack of brokenness and earnestness; and the acts of passing over — reckoning the cost, and believing, which is explained both in general and in particular, comprising knowledge, assent, and trust — that is, turning to, looking for, waiting on, receiving, surrendering to, forsaking all for, and setting the heart upon Christ, and resting in Him — having for its fruits comfort and glory.
XI. Chapter 11. Marks of a true covenant partner and believer, and of a false covenant partner and temporary believer. Shows the necessity of examining oneself, by seven reasons; the various sorts of people who are harmful to themselves in this respect — namely: those who have neither thought nor concern for their present or future state; those who are convinced of their unconverted condition and nevertheless remain godless; those who are good-natured and live civilly and, though convinced they have no spiritual life, remain as they are through laziness and carelessness; those who seem to stand between the two, complaining much of their concerns yet unwilling to be found out by others; and those who hold themselves assured of their state — some without any ground, some on false grounds, some on good grounds falsely applied. In distinguishing these it is also shown to true believers what is different in them from temporary believers, by three marks: from sorrow, from faith itself, and from sanctification. Several difficulties that cause believers doubt are then removed.
XII. Chapter 12. On the glory of covenant partners with respect to their adoption as children, verse 6, "and You have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with honor and glory." The glory of a child of God is shown: from man's wretchedness in himself; from the glory of God, their Father; from comparison with the great number who have no part in this; from the manner of their adoption, namely, acceptance, betrothal to Christ, and regeneration; and from many glorious privileges.
XIII. Chapter 13. On the beauty and comeliness of covenant partners with respect to justification.
XIV. Chapter 14. On the beauty and comeliness of the children of God with respect to sanctification.
XV. Chapter 15. On the riches and exaltation of covenant partners in this life, and their glory after this life. On verses 7, 8, and 9, concerning man's dominion over the works of God's hands.
XVI. Chapter 16. On the duties of covenant partners. Shows that every covenant partner must wholly devote himself to the practice of these six duties: 1. to glorify God for the establishing of the covenant; 2. to rejoice over the great grace and glory into and unto which he has been taken up in the covenant, and to walk with a cheerful and well-disposed heart in that course; 3. to show himself as a light, in contempt of all that is worldly, and in the pursuit of a heavenly life; 4. to live in love with all true covenant partners; 5. to keep peace with all covenant partners; 6. to strive against sin and against all the enemies of Christ and His covenant partners.
XVII. Chapter 17. On the administration of the covenant across three periods, with various considerations concerning it. Shows what the gospel is, both as to the matter and as to the word; that the gospel is a mystery that is made known to man not by nature, but only by God's revelation; and the various manners of that revelation across the three periods, namely from Adam to Abraham, and from Abraham to Christ — where seven questions are answered, namely: whether the Old Testament begins with Adam or with Sinai; whether the covenant made at Horeb is a covenant of works; whether it is a mixed covenant; whether it is an outward or a covenant of grace; whether the ceremonial service was a blessing, or a punishment for the golden calf; and whether believers under the Old Testament had the spirit of adoption and full forgiveness, and so forth — and from Christ to the consummation of the world, where it is shown wherein the difference between the Old and New Testaments consists. And how each person ought to conduct himself with respect to the diversity of the revelation of the gospel.
Chapter 1
The Exposition. In which is shown, in particular, that this psalm is not a prophecy of the state of the church in the New Testament — and especially that verses 2 and 10 do not describe its first and its last state — but a holy wonder of a child of God at the glory of God showing itself in the preservation and government both of the whole earth and, especially, with respect to His children in Christ Jesus.
The superscription of this psalm, verse 1, makes known that King and Prophet David — that man after God's own heart, that sweet psalmist of Israel — is the author of this psalm; that it was given to the Chief Musician, to be sung in the congregation upon Gittith, that is, either an instrument of music, or a melody, or a march of the priestly order.
The contents of this psalm are set forth thus in the translated Bibles. The Latin Bible: David extols the majesty of God in the works in heaven and on earth, but most of all in man, both as created and as restored through Christ. The Italian Bible: David extols the high glory of God and His infinite goodness toward the whole human race in Christ the Mediator. The French Bible: An acknowledgment of the wondrous virtue of the LORD, showing itself in the creation of all things, and above all in the honor which He deigns to bestow upon man, at which David cannot marvel enough. The English Bible: God's honor and glory through His works, and through His love toward man. The High German Bible: David praises the beneficence of God toward men, in that He wondrously provides them with necessary sustenance, and originally created them in His own image and made them lord over the other creatures, and also, through Christ, brings the elect back to rights and restores them again to their lost glory.
An old Dutch Bible, in the margin: 1. This is a manner of singing, or some musical instrument. 2. David here relates and praises the great power of God, and His goodness, which He shows toward the human race. Thus he begins with a wonder, as though protesting that his heart, in considering the great and glorious works of God, is so caught up that he cannot rightly express it. 3. That is: Your majesty is so great that it surpasses all the heavens. 4. If one rightly considers what God does, and His daily providence — indeed, even what He does for little children — there is no enemy of God who is not put to shame and constrained to give Him honor, Matthew 21:16. 5. That is, the enemy whose heart is full of and inflamed with vengefulness, Hebrews 2:6. 6. Otherwise: for You have made him a little lower than God, or than the angels; that is, it lacks little that man is not divine and heavenly. 7. Otherwise: and You have crowned him with honor and glory. The crown is a sign of the highest dignity; therefore to crown is taken for to exalt and bring to a great estate. 8. That is: You have made all things subject to him.
The New Translation: David extols to the utmost God's majesty, almighty power, and wondrous government — especially His incomprehensible goodness and grace toward wretched man, in the Messiah Jesus Christ.
This is the common judgment of theologians of every age, to which we also give our assent.
Three parts present themselves of their own accord in this psalm, namely: the Proposition, verse 2; the Expansion, verses 3 through 9; and a Conclusion, verse 10.
I. The Proposition
The Proposition is a holy wonder at the glory of God's name. Verse 2: O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth! Even though a natural man beholds the works of God, he cannot rightly behold God in them, nor glorify God because of them; that is a gift of grace to the children of God, such as David was, who, with an attentive heart beholding the creatures in their being and motions, and the workings and benefits of God accompanying them, does not remain hanging upon the creatures or upon God's benefits attending them, but sees God in them, and turns himself, amazed, with a holy wonder, to God, crying out: O LORD, our Lord.
Jehovah is a word that denotes a living being described through every kind of time — present, past, and future. Revelation 1:8: "who is, and who was, and who is to come." In sense this amounts to eternal, which is why the French also translate it l'Éternel. By this name Eve named God, Genesis 4:1; and as other peoples fell away from God and true religion, this name remained among the people of God. It was the customary name by which the true God was distinguished from the idols to which they also gave the name of gods, and by which His people could also remember the certainty of God's promises made to them. Therefore the LORD explained this name: "I AM: I will be who I will be," Exodus 3. Though scholars of language have been able to find much sweetness in considering this name, it is nevertheless not now necessary to retain that name in our own tongue. It is worth noting that this name Jehovah is not found anywhere in the whole New Testament, but that in place of Jehovah the word "Lord" is used. Concerning this, Buxtorf says, in his Hebrew Lexicon under the word Jehovah, that the Seventy — the Greek translators before Christ's time — always rendered it by "Lord." Pasor, in his Greek Lexicon under the word Kurios, "Lord," says that in the New Testament it is ascribed to God and corresponds to the word Jehovah. Polanus, Book 2, Chapter 6, says: Jehovah, which in the Greek translation of the Bible is rendered "Lord." And again: Kurios, "Lord," when ascribed to God absolutely, corresponds to the Hebrew word Jehovah.
It is not enough for David, to express his full heart, to say by way of exclamation, "O LORD"; he adds also Adonenu, "our Lord." This makes known a mutual ownership, union, and love. Though God is the rightful owner and ruler of all men, the word "our Lord" still means to say something particular. It looks to the covenant of grace, in which all the elect, from Adam's time down to the day of judgment, are taken up, and in which God in Christ is their reconciled God and Father — so that they alone can say, "LORD, our Lord," and this in contrast to the world, which cannot say so in that sense.
Here someone might ask: whether by "the LORD, our Lord" here is meant the Lord Jesus as Mediator, or whether by "the LORD" here is meant God the Father of our Jesus Christ. I answer: not the Lord Jesus as Mediator, of whom it is prophesied in this psalm that He would be crowned with honor and glory, but God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has crowned Him with honor and glory. This the apostle Paul shows, 1 Corinthians 15:24,27,28, where, with an eye on this psalm, he says: "Then comes the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father... For He has put all things under His feet. But when He says all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted who put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."
Having seen who "the LORD, our Lord" is, it now comes into consideration what is to be understood by "Your name." By this, Holy Scripture expresses the attributes of God that show themselves in the creatures and in God's dealings with the creatures — such as omnipotence, wisdom, goodness, mercy, righteousness, and the like. It does not become any man, much less a Christian, to remain hanging with his thoughts upon the creatures; rather, he must climb up, through all visible things, to the Invisible One. These attributes of His, says the psalmist, God displays over the whole earth. By "the earth" is sometimes meant the men who dwell upon the earth, sometimes the dry land as opposed to the waters, sometimes the whole globe, including the air and the firmament.
It is in this last sense that we judge it must be taken here; for the prophet, spreading out the glory of God's name over the whole earth, speaks of heaven, moon, stars, birds in the air, beasts on the earth, and fish in the waters. That in all of these God's name shows itself is known to everyone. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork; day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard," Psalm 19:2,3,4.
At this name, displayed over the whole earth, David cries out in wonder, how excellent! God is, in Himself, perfect in glory, and beyond a creature's beholding; but the brightness of His perfect glory shines in all His works. The angels who see that glorious God cover their faces because of the brightness of His glory, and cry: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory," Isaiah 6:3. The godly, seeing the glory of the LORD, pause and praise Him for it, saying, with Psalm 104:2: "He covers Himself with light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a curtain," and, verse 24: "O LORD, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your riches." The prophet David, considering the glory of the name of the LORD, sees such splendor and majesty that he finds himself, as it were, lost, and, finding no words to express it, cries out in wonder: "O LORD, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!" And having now delighted himself in running through and considering these and other works of God, he ends in that same wonder and with the same words with which he had begun — so that beginning, middle, and end are all the glorifying of God.
Here someone might now ask: is this psalm not a prophecy of the state of the church of the New Testament, in contrast to the Old, so that they could not sing this psalm except only wishing that that time might come? And is verse 2 not a prophecy of the beginning of the days of the New Testament, or of the state of the church in the time of the apostles? And is verse 10 not a prophecy of a coming glorious state of the church at the end of the New Testament?
Before I answer, I must confess that I rejoice as often as I consider the glorious state of the church in the time of the apostles, and that I grieve over its present state, and wish that my head were water and my eyes a fountain of tears, to weep over the sorrowful, lifeless, and corrupted state of the church as it now is; that I wait and long with outstretched neck for the fall of Antichrist, for the conversion of the Jews, and for a glorious state of the church; yet I know neither the time nor the measure, and will not boldly set bounds concerning it, but leave that to the Lord. I wish that I might not so stare toward what is to come that I neglect my duty in the present, and forget heaven.
But that this psalm, and especially verses 2 and 10, should be a prophecy of the New Testament and of the first and last state of that church — for this no grounds are to be found in this psalm. Rather, the whole psalm throughout offers firm proofs that the content of this psalm is, as we have set forth above, according to the common judgment of theologians of every age.
1. From these words, "O LORD, our Lord," etc., one cannot conclude any such prophecy, as if here "the LORD, our Lord" were Christ, and Christ's name were said to be glorious in every place of the earth. For: (a) It is undeniable, from 1 Corinthians 15, related above, that "the LORD, our Lord" is not Christ but God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and so everything that one might build on such a foundation falls of itself. (b) It is beyond dispute that "Your name" is the name — that is, the displayed glorious attributes — of Him who is here called LORD, namely God the Father; and so what is meant thereby is not the glory of Christ as revealed through the gospel. From these two points it appears clearly enough that they furnish no proof of such a general prophecy. (c) Nor do the words "the whole earth" give any proof for it; for the gospel, and Christ through the gospel, has to this very day not been glorious over the whole earth — most lands and peoples have always been destitute of it. So this verse was not fulfilled, then, in the time of the apostles. Should someone think that "the whole earth" means as much as "spread abroad and not confined to Canaan" — one should know that there is no ground for such a notion. One must always hold fast that, even though a thing is true in itself, it does not follow that any given passage speaks of it; many simple souls, however, are beguiled by such prejudice. There must be evidence that this is indeed the meaning of the Holy Spirit in that particular passage; now that is not the case here. And whoever might have this notion about the words "the whole earth" in verse 2 would have to explain the same words again in verse 10 in the same way, without exception — and what reasons would offer themselves to the conscience for that twofold sense? None at all, as we shall yet show. Let everyone take heed: it might perhaps be so; one can suppose it without contending against the rule of faith — but that is not the same as establishing it as certain, for such suppositions would make a person apt to lose the holy wisdom and simple truth of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. Since, then, the words "the whole earth" mean the entire globe, as we have shown above, and Christ's name has not been, nor is, glorious everywhere, this gives no proof for the notion that this psalm, and especially verse 2, should be a prophecy of the days of the New Testament. On the contrary, it shows that the content is as stated above.
2. It is plain to the conscience of every Christian that God's name is glorious over the whole earth in the work of creation, preservation, and government, and that this glory is also seen by the creatures. The angels shouted for joy over the creation, Job 38:9; and who does not believe that they still marvel at God's daily works among the creatures, and glorify God for them? The heathen have known from these His eternal power and Godhead, Romans 1:20,21: "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has shown it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse; because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful." And again, Acts 14:16,17: "who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways; nevertheless He left not Himself without witness." That the godly glorify God over the work of preservation and government appears not only from Holy Scripture, but the conscience of the godly will testify for me that they have indeed, through beholding the creatures and God's dealings among them, been drawn up in a special way to God, and have glorified Him for it with wonder. God also wills that we do this: Jeremiah 5:22,24: "Fear you not Me? says the LORD; will you not tremble at My presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea?... Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that gives rain," etc. I judge that he would have far too low a view of the works of God in nature who would think the consideration of them, and the glorifying of God for them, too small a matter for a Christian.
I therefore conclude that one cannot conclude from these words that this psalm is a prophecy of the states of the church under the days of the New Testament, but on the contrary, that it is a holy wonder of a child of God at the glory of God showing itself in the preservation and government both of the whole earth and, especially, with respect to His children in Christ — for whose benefit not only all things exist, but who, moreover, can truly perceive the works of nature in a spiritual way. For when they fix their eyes upon Christ, through whom all things work together for their good, and through whom all creatures are, as it were, so many letters spelling out the glory of God to them, that wonder surpasses everything else. This is the first reason.
The second reason: one must also not quietly allow oneself to be misled by the notion that this psalm is a prophecy of the states of the church in the New Testament merely because a prophecy of Christ is contained in it. For not every chapter, book, or psalm in which there are prophecies of Christ may be applied to the days of the New Testament; that is plainly against the circumstances, and would lead to the most absurd consequences. Therefore that reasoning must not creep in on us here either. It is no wonder that Christ is mentioned in many psalms of praise and thanksgiving, for they had need of Christ then just as much as we do now; they saw well enough that they received everything through the Messiah, and that the contemplation of Him made all their doings spiritual.
The third reason: nor should one, for the sake of such notions, draw a hasty conclusion — namely, that everything that follows in this psalm is to be understood figuratively: the setting of His majesty above the heavens as Christ's ascension; the children and infants as the apostles; the heaven, etc., as the church; the birds, etc., as the enemies of the church; and so forth — and accordingly that this psalm is a prophecy of the New Testament. But all of this must not be taken figuratively, but properly, as we shall show further on. Indeed, the contrary appears from it. For since the manner and means by which God's name is known to be glorious over the whole earth are not the means by which the gospel is spread abroad, but rather the means by which God's glory is seen in the works of nature — namely, properly speaking, young children and infants, heaven, moon, and stars, as will be shown as clearly as the sun — there is here, then, no prophecy of the state of the church of the New Testament wrought through the gospel; rather, the content is as has now repeatedly been stated.
And to be convinced that verses 2 and 10 in particular do not look to the first and last state of the church of the New Testament, note: 1. In verse 2 and verse 10 the words are the same; no circumstance of the text shows any change of sense, nor is any diversity of time indicated by any description. The same words must therefore mean the same thing; and since they mean the same thing, they cannot be prophecies of those two different states. 2. If these were prophecies of those two states of the church of the New Testament, those two states would have to be entirely alike, since the words are the same and no circumstances point to any distinction. Just as in the first period of the New Testament a great multitude of lands and kingdoms remained in darkness, the church was mixed with chaff, and much was still subject to strife, so the last state would also have to be the same, if these were indeed such prophecies. But such a likeness no one will grant; and so this notion, that they are prophecies, falls to the ground. 3. If one were to conclude these two states from the repetition of the same words at the beginning and end of this psalm, one would have to do the same in every psalm in which the same words are found repeated at the beginning and end. For no reason presents itself why one should do so in the one case and not in the other; and even if there were a reason, one would not conclude it from the repetition, but from the reason itself. Now there is no such reason here, and from mere repetition one may not draw this conclusion. For otherwise the first "Praise the LORD," or Hallelujah, would have to be the first state of the New Testament, and the last Hallelujah the second state, also in those other psalms — Psalm 117, 118, 135, 136, 147, etc. Likewise, in the Lord's Prayer, "Hallowed be Your name" would be the first state, and "Yours is the glory" would then have to be the last state of the church. But these things are absurd; so it is likewise absurd to draw such a conclusion here from the repetition in this psalm.
Thus these two verses remain a holy wonder, with which the prophet begins and ends. This agrees with a soul that is in such a state of wonder; it is fitting that one should both begin and end with the glorifying of God. This makes known the whole drift of this psalm.
This is now enough as concerns the wonder itself; the prophet answers it with an amplification: "who has set Your majesty above the heavens." As if he would say: what could I comprehend of Your glory, seeing it is infinite? Not only does it surpass my comprehension, but the earth is too small — indeed, the heaven of heavens cannot comprehend it. On earth there appear only small reflections of Your glory; but in the third heaven, which is Your throne, Your glory shows itself in an inconceivably more glorious degree, and yet it is still infinitely more glorious than that. Therefore I draw in my small sights and thoughts, so as not to gaze upon what is too high for me, and I believe what I do not see. I bow myself down before You and glorify You. "Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom, and You have exalted Yourself as head above all. You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, and all their host, the earth and all things that are on it, and You give life to them all, and the host of heaven worships You. Therefore You are worthy to receive glory, and honor, and power."
Here someone might ask: is not Christ's ascension to be understood by these words, "who has set Your majesty," etc.? I answer that no grounds present themselves for this, but rather grounds against it. For: 1. The coherence of the words does not allow it. For then first would be spoken of the expansion of Christ's kingdom, which took place only after Christ's ascension; and then it would go back to Christ's ascension, and from there go back still further to the children in the temple; then it would speak again of the church, then of Christ's humiliation, and then again of Christ's ascension. Who will grant this? 2. But besides this, it is beyond doubt that by "the LORD, our Lord" is meant not the Lord Jesus, but the Father of our Jesus. It is not the Mediator's name but God's name that is said to be glorious over the whole earth; and so it follows, in the same style and manner of speaking, that it is not Christ's, but the LORD's, majesty that is set above the heavens. 3. Add to this that Christ's ascension is nowhere expressed in Holy Scripture by these words; but on the contrary, Scripture is accustomed to use similar manners of speaking when it declares the great praise of God, as Luke 2:14: "Glory to God in the highest"; and Luke 19:38: "Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest"; Psalm 108:5: "For Your mercy is great above the heavens, and Your truth reaches unto the clouds." From all this it is plain enough that by these words is meant, not Christ's ascension, but the unutterable glory of God.
II. The Expansion
The second part is an expansion of the glory of God's name, at which the prophet marveled in verse 2. In this we have, first, the display, and second, the application. It is displayed below, on the earth, in the children, and above, in the heaven and its host.
Below, in the children, verse 3: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings You have ordained strength because of Your enemies, that You might still the enemy and the avenger. What need is there of words to display the glory of God's name? Is not a little child enough to declare the praise of the LORD? But how do little children and infants do this?
They do it objectively, by their very existence — just as the heavens declare God's glory, as hail, wind, and snow, in their way, praise God, as the field rejoices — that is, they give occasion and material to men to do so. They say, by their very being, that God has worked them into existence, that they are here and that they move; that God watches over them and rescues them out of a thousand dangers; that God is so good that He provides for them in everything, without their labor or care; that God prepares a womb for them, gives them growth, teaches them to suck, gives them their charm, gladdens them and makes them laugh, so that they in turn gladden others; that God gives them understanding above the beasts of the field, and so forth.
They also do it with their words, as when they raise questions — why and by what this or that is so — and when they sometimes answer in such a way that learned men are struck dumb by it and must say in their hearts, "That is the finger of God" — so that God has no need of great understanding and practiced tongues to declare His praise, but knows how to work it out even through little children. And in a particular way little children declare the praise of the LORD when God's Spirit works in them, and they are born again even in their infancy.
Here someone might ask: are by "children and infants" natural children meant, or the apostles and other weak Christians? I answer: not the apostles, but young children in years. For: 1. The literal sense of the words "children and infants" is to be understood as young natural children; and one ought not to depart from the literal and proper sense without evident reason, or else everything becomes uncertain. And there is no reason here to depart from it, so the proper sense stands. 2. By children and infants in the proper sense, God's praise is indeed declared — this no one but an atheist will deny; accordingly the matter itself applies also to young natural children. 3. Since this third verse is an expansion of the second, showing by what means God's name is glorious over the whole earth, by "children" must be understood such as glorify God's name in the same sense in which, according to verse 2, God's name is said to be glorious over the whole earth. Now God's name is said in verse 2 to be glorious on account of creation and preservation, as has been shown at verse 2; and children in the proper sense glorify God's name in that respect. Therefore by "children and infants" in verse 3 must be understood properly so-called children in years. 4. To my knowledge, the apostles are never called "infants" in God's Word; there would have to be a plain necessity for taking a passage where "infants" occurs, not merely away from its proper sense, but precisely to give it that other sense. Now no such necessity exists here. 5. The Lord Jesus Himself expressly explains this text of young natural children, Matthew 21:15,16: "And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were sore displeased, and said unto Him, Hear You what these say? And Jesus said unto them, Yes; have you never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings You have perfected praise?" Note: (1) that Christ here has His eye on the eighth psalm no one will deny — not that this psalm is an express prophecy applying only to these particular children who cried out then, but this is always true, that when one observes something remarkable in little children, one may well apply this text; just as the promise, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," did not apply only to the Hebrews to whom Paul wrote, or was a prophecy concerning them alone, but is a general promise touching all believers of every age — there are many such passages, and this is one of them. (2) Note that the Lord Jesus does not simply say "children," but "young children." (3) Note also that the evangelists or apostles never call their fellow apostles "children" when relating something of them — yet that is what happens here: "the children crying out." So we see from all this that by "children and infants" are meant young natural children.
This is not overturned by Luke 19:37,38: "And when He was come near, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, Blessed be the King that comes in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto Him, Master, rebuke Your disciples. And He answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." I say this does not overturn what has been stated above. For: 1. Here there is not the least indication that Christ has His eye on the eighth psalm. 2. What stands in Luke and what stands in Matthew occurred in different places — the children were in the temple, the disciples were on the road, at the descent of the Mount of Olives. 3. It is also clear that each had different reasons: the children cried, "Hosanna to the son of David"; the disciples, "Blessed is the King," etc. 4. It is known that Christ, in defending each, spoke different reasons: to the children, this eighth psalm, "Out of the mouth," etc.; to the disciples, "I tell you that," etc. So it is as clear as day that Matthew and Luke are not relating the same event but each something different; so that one may not merge these two passages into one, and then say that whom Matthew calls children, Luke calls disciples. Rather, it stands immovable that here by "children" are properly meant children in the literal sense.
Of these children the psalmist says: "out of the mouth You have ordained strength." This manner of speaking, "out of the mouth," does not always mean, in God's Word, "by speech," but commonly means "by means of," "through," "by that," "by this," and so forth. So here, "out of the mouth" — that is, through the children — "You have ordained strength"; that is, You have firmly and irrefutably established Your praise, springing from Your continually flowing preservation and providing power and strength. Your strength is so plainly perceived in them that one cannot shut one's eyes to it; it manifests itself so mightily in them that no one can hide it or take it away.
That the gospel and its proclamation are not meant here appears from this: 1. Since by "children and infants" are meant not the apostles but properly so-called young children, as has now been shown, the gospel cannot be meant here, since the gospel is proclaimed not by infants but by grown persons; rather, the text means that manner of spreading God's praise which happens through little children and infants. 2. The Lord Jesus removes all doubt when He explains those words, "You have ordained strength," Matthew 21:16, as "You have perfected praise." It is indeed true that the gospel is also sometimes called a power of God, Romans 1:16; but the word "power" rarely means that, and has a thousand other meanings, nor does the apostle there intend at all to expound the eighth psalm — so that this is not sufficient to raise any doubt in the mind. Thus God's praise is spread abroad through children and infants; though they are weak in themselves, their testimony is nevertheless very powerful, for it serves to still the enemy and the avenger.
Man, in his fallen nature, is called an enemy of God, Romans 5:10; a hater of God, Romans 1:30. The godless set themselves against God, will not submit themselves to Him, go directly against His will and commands — indeed, labor to drive God out of their hearts. Psalm 14:1: "The fool has said in his heart, There is no God." When these are now instructed or rebuked, they rage against it; a vengefulness rises up in their spirit. Now these — whether they will know God or not, whether they will believe His preservation and government or not — the little children overcome them in their conscience. Not that they are removed from the earth, or that they would bow beneath the truth — no; but they are convicted in their conscience, and struck dumb in their reasoning, so that with all their chatter they can accomplish nothing.
That the devil and the enemies of the gospel are not meant here appears also from this: that the devil and the enemies of the gospel are not overcome by little children and infants, just as the gospel is likewise neither spread nor defended by them; rather, it is godless deniers who are overcome through them. And since it has now been shown that the gospel is not meant here at all, its enemies cannot be spoken of here either. So the glory of God's name appears in that one small proof, upon the earth.
Climbing from below upward, we see that heaven, too, is not devoid of such teachers, as the prophet continues in verse 4: When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained. By these are meant those creatures that God, in Genesis 1, named heaven, moon, and stars. The psalmist calls them "Your heaven," because God made it, thereby showing that he traced all creatures back to God as their origin. He calls them "the work of Your fingers" on account of their fine workmanship, for it is with the fingers that men give a work its delicacy — as if he said: In beholding these heavenly creatures I see such splendor, glory, orderliness, and in all of them Your power, goodness, wisdom, majesty, and glory shine forth so brightly, that I am carried away in wonder, and, because it is inexpressible, can only say, and, out of love, joy, and affection, willingly say: How excellent is Your name in all the earth!
To bring this truth home to the mind beyond doubt, note: 1. This is the proper sense of the words, from which one may not depart without necessity and evident reason, or else one would throw all of Scripture, and all human writings and spoken words, into confusion, and give them no fixed sense at all — indeed, would render all human language incapable of any distinct meaning. Now here there is neither necessity nor reason to depart from it. 2. The heaven, moon, and stars give man occasion to glorify God for the attributes that show themselves in them. No one can help but grant this. So the proper sense of the words agrees also with the truth of the matter itself. 3. The whole thread of this psalm shows this same sense. We have seen above that the psalmist, in verse 2, glorifies God for His works in nature, and that in verse 3 he extends that praise to the foremost of the living creatures below. Now he speaks immediately thereafter, in verse 4, of heaven, the work of God's fingers, moon and stars, the foremost among the lifeless creatures above, as proofs of that glory of which verse 2 had spoken.
Here someone might ask why no mention is made here of the sun. I answer that I cannot say for certain. This much is known to us, that the clear face of the heavens in the still night, when all is silent and at rest, is very apt to bring a devout and meditating soul tenderly to attentiveness and to being lifted up unto God. We know, then, that the sun — which, indeed, by day makes everything else more visible than itself — is itself not seen. David testifies more than once that he occupied himself at night with spiritual things.
So we have now seen the display of the glory of God's name, which the psalmist had set forth in wonder at verse 2. There now follows the application of the works of God to man, whose nothingness and exaltation, compared together, in a wondrous way display the goodness of God.
The humiliation is at verse 5: What is man, that You are mindful of him? And the son of man, that You visit him? Man, whoever he may be, is after the fall an Enosh — that is, a wretched man — in himself, as to the body, for he is dust; and through sin he is unclean, hateful, and worthy of condemnation. And he is a son of Adam, who, having sinned, brought forth a son after his own image.
Though Adam before the fall was perfect, it was nevertheless nothing but sheer goodness that God exalted him so highly and set him as a prince to have dominion over His creatures. But now that man is so sinful, why does God still let him live? Why does He give him covering and food? Why do sun, moon, and stars serve him? Why is there still so much dominion left to him over birds, beasts of the earth, and fish? It is nothing but goodness and long-suffering; and therefore we may well marvel, saying, "What is man?" etc. So long as nothing more is added than that visitation with outward blessings that are to be recognized, and by which man ought to be drawn to God, the wicked man will squander all these good things, and prosperity will destroy him. But when a child of God enjoys and beholds all these good things in Christ, they are then beneficial and blessed to him, not only as to the body, but also as to the soul. And this wonder ought to grow, the deeper the misery and the higher the benefits. For the children of God are, after all, just as wretched, and by nature children of wrath, as all others. Therefore how wondrous is the goodness of God, that He was mindful of them from eternity, for their good, and in time visits them with such blessings, giving them His Son and all things in Him! Indeed, that the LORD, in order to bring His children from such a wretched state to such an ordained glory, so deeply humbled His own Son, even unto death, and thereupon so highly exalted Him, and His children in Him. Truly: what is man, that You are mindful of him?
The prophet now adds the exaltation to this, so that by comparing these two unequal things the goodness of God might appear the greater. This is set forth with respect to glory, and then with respect to dominion.
With respect to glory, verse 6: And have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with honor and glory. The Hebrew word me'at sometimes means "little" in number — Nehemiah 2:12: "I and a few men with me"; sometimes "little" in contrast to "much" — Ecclesiastes 5:11: "whether he has eaten little or much"; sometimes "little" in worth — Proverbs 10:20: "the heart of the wicked is little worth"; sometimes "little" in time — Haggai 2:6: "yet once, a little while." The Greek phrase brachy ti likewise sometimes means a little in time, sometimes a little in degree, as may be seen in Scapula's Lexicon with its proofs. "You have made him a little," etc.: You have exalted man so highly that he stands next to the angels in glory; and if the children of God are now, because of mortality, made a little lower, this will only be for a little while, for before long they shall be isangeloi, that is, equal to angels.
"And have crowned him with honor and glory." What glory and dignity still remain in man, even after the fall, in the stature of his body, in his understanding, and in all his actions, above the beasts of the earth! And though believers seem to be the most wretched of all creatures, they are nevertheless, above all others, crowned with honor and glory — in their Head, Christ, and in themselves, by the image of God. "Holiness adorns Your house, O LORD, forever," Psalm 93:5.
Man, thus exalted in glory, is also endowed by God with dominion; of which is spoken, both in general at verse 7 and in particular at verses 8 and 9: You made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yes, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
From the whole context it appears that one should not understand, by "sheep and oxen," churchmen together with the common people in the church; by "the beasts," the wild and savage heathen; by "birds and fish," frivolous, proud, and vain persons; and by "whatever passes through the paths of the sea," the devil, the Antichrist, and all persecutors of the church. I say, from the whole context it appears that these words must not be understood in such a way, but must be taken in their proper sense. The thing itself, as proposed by the proper meaning of the words, man had in Adam, Genesis 1:26: "that he should have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." After the fall, man still retains something of this, James 3:7: "For every kind of beast, and of birds, is tamed, and has been tamed, by mankind." Believers, through Christ, have again obtained full right to this, 1 Corinthians 3:21,22,23: "For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come — all are yours; and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." So the proper sense agrees with the matter itself, with the words, and with their context; and accordingly it is this sense that is to be retained.
But someone might think, are these things not too small a matter for a believer to marvel at so? I answer: that the smallest crust of bread, received from the hand of the LORD as one's reconciled Father, and obtained even through the blood of Christ, by a believer who sees himself in his sinfulness, can well cause tears of joy to flow from his eyes. A believer does not stay fixed on the benefit itself, but sees in it the Benefactor; and descending from the Benefactor to the gift, and to the receiver, and then climbing back up again from him and the gift to the Giver, he can thereby sweetly rejoice, and glorify God in it. Whoever has experienced this needs no further explanation. Besides this, believers know that a greater good has been laid up for them, and that the receiving of bodily goods is a token of God's unchanging love and goodness, which gives them this as a small addition. Finally, was not Adam bound to acknowledge the goodness of God, who had subjected everything to him, and to thank and glorify God for it? Surely yes. Much more reason, then, has a converted person for it, that God does such things for a sinner, and does so through the deep humiliations of His Son.
But here there is still this question: is not the Lord Jesus Christ prophesied of here? I answer that David, viewing all things with a believing soul in the Messiah, also speaks and prophesies of the Messiah in this psalm.
If we rightly follow the purpose and the order of the psalm, it appears that the psalmist has his eye on the providence of God over man, and that each person, according to his own state and in his own manner, has a share in it; but that he has his eye particularly on the children of God in Christ, and so also on Christ Himself. Adam was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with honor and glory, and all things were put under his feet, through the excellence and holiness of his nature — having the image of God perfectly, and ruling by a given power.
The unregenerate, after the fall, are by nature still more excellent than all other creatures, and come nearest to the angels, and still exercise some dominion by sufferance. The regenerate have now again become partakers of the divine nature, and have been glorified with the image of God, and have again a right to all things and dominion over all things. The world has been overcome, the devil crushed beneath their feet, and in every trial they are more than conquerors through their Head, Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus was made a little lower because of the suffering of death, but has been crowned with honor and glory in the degrees of His exaltation; and all things are put under His feet, as King and Heir of all things: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth," says the Lord Jesus, Matthew 28:18. Paul testifies of Him, Philippians 2:9: "Therefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those on earth, and those under the earth."
Paul, with his eye on this psalm, says, 1 Corinthians 15:27: "For He has put all things under His feet." And Hebrews 2:6-9: "But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that You are mindful of him? Or the son of man, that You visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of Your hands: You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." Here the apostle draws a contrast between the angels and man: what he takes away from the angels, he testifies to be proper to man. To understand this rightly, one must regard Christ and His members as one body; when something is said of that body, it sometimes applies to both, head and members alike, each in his own degree and in his own manner. Sometimes it applies chiefly to the head, sometimes to the members.
Taking these words, then, as applying to the whole body: for it is plain that God was mindful of His elect, wretched little men, and visited them; that He has exalted them so highly that they are crowned with honor and glory, and has put all things under their feet. That God has also crowned Christ, the Head of the elect, with honor and glory, and has put all things under His feet, is likewise beyond question. But the words "What is man," etc., apply to the members, in our judgment, in a particular way.
I readily grant that Christ is the Son of man, that with respect to His suffering He was a wretched Enosh, a man of sorrows; but I cannot understand that it was an unspeakable grace of God — for so it is here proposed — with respect to the Mediator Jesus Christ, that God was mindful of Him, such that one might cry out in wonder over it, "What is man, that You are mindful of him?" etc. For: 1. Since Christ, being true God, united the human nature to Himself in the unity of His Person from the very first moment of its existence, the human nature never subsisted except through the substance of the divine nature. Thus Christ was Immanuel, and the human nature was the human nature of the Son of God. 2. This human nature, subsisting through the divine substance, was holy. 3. This Immanuel was the Surety, who was both fit and acceptable to God, so that everything proceeded with the purest righteousness; therefore grace had no place here. It was indeed grace, with respect to man, that God gave His Son to be a Surety; but it was altogether righteousness, whatever was done alongside the Surety, and whatever came to pass, through the accomplishment of His suretyship, for the benefit of His children.
So that this wonder — "what is man, that You are mindful of him" — cannot properly apply to Christ Himself in this sense, but must, I judge, be applied to His members. In this connection, the words "You have made him a little lower than the angels" must be applied one way to the members and another way to the Head. To the members they apply by way of exaltation, as is clear both from the thread of the eighth psalm and from Hebrews 2:7. But the apostle, applying those same words to Christ in verse 9, applies them as a humiliation of Christ, saying: "who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death."
III. The Conclusion
Thus we have now considered the second part of this psalm, namely, the expansion of the glory of God. There now follows the third part, which is the conclusion, verse 10: O LORD! our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth! What serves for the explanation of these words we have already said at verse 2. Here we see what high and exalted thoughts the prophet has of God; what strong faith he has, regarding and naming the LORD as his portion, as his own possession; what a holy attentiveness to weigh with understanding the mercies of the LORD; what a delight to glorify God; and what wonder and glory arise out of all this! He cannot satisfy himself enough in declaring the manifold praise of the LORD. And as he comes to a close, he lets it echo long: O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth! Oh, that we, through beholding the spirituality of the soul of this man, might not only fall in love with such a disposition and practice, but that we ourselves might also be brought to it! And indeed, the lovers of the name of the LORD shall yet once more be raised up to it — yes, to sing HALLELUJAH forever, in light and perfect holiness.
Chapter 2
Verse 2. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name!
It is shown that every Christian must glorify God. 1. This duty is confirmed by example and by command. 2. The practice of it is stirred up by four motives. 3. The neglect of this duty is lamented — in the whole world outside the church; and in many within the church, whether scoffers, hypocrites, or those who deceive themselves with a show of glorifying God; and even in the godly themselves. 4. The manner of practicing this duty is set forth in three acts.
Is this Psalm only for David's own delight? Or is it only for the church of the Old Testament? No — we too are the congregation of God. God's Name now reveals itself just as gloriously throughout the whole world as it did then, indeed in some respects and places even more gloriously; we too have been appointed to this very end, that we should proclaim the excellencies of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Come then, lovers of the LORD's Name! Let us, in beholding God's almightiness, his wonderful governance, and his singular loving-kindness toward his favored ones in Christ, likewise be moved to wonder, and cry out with David: O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy Name! And let us learn from that man after God's own heart.
He does this not only in this Psalm, but this is his continual practice throughout the Psalms: for he sings, Ps. 103:2: "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy Name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not any of his benefits." Psalm 104:33/34: "I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet; I will rejoice in the LORD." Ps. 17:14, 15, 16: "But I will hope continually, and will yet make all thy praise greater. My mouth shall tell of thy righteousness, and thy salvation all the day, though I know not the numbers thereof. I will go forth in the mighty acts of the Lord GOD; I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only." He knew well that he could not of himself rise up to so great a blessedness; therefore he prays to be permitted and enabled to do this —
Ps. 71:8: "Let my mouth be filled with thy praise, and with thy honor all the day." The psalmist cannot satisfy himself with singing the praise of God, so that in Psalm 136 he repeats it time and again, "Praise the LORD," and twenty-six times over gives the reason: "for his mercy endureth forever." To this end especially serve those Psalms in which the Hallelujah, the "Praise the LORD," is repeated once, twice, and many times more; and the prophet, finding himself too small and too powerless to declare that infinite praise and to praise that great and glorious Name, calls all creatures of every kind, every rank of men, to his aid, that they might praise the LORD together with him — Ps. 148. And he ends: "Let everything that hath breath praise the LORD. Hallelujah." Ps. 150.
The Lord Jesus teaches us to desire, to pray for, and to pursue this first and last in that prayer, Matth. 6. To this our apostle Paul likewise stirs us up, 1 Cor. 6:20: "For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." 1 Cor. 10:41: "Whether therefore ye eat, or whether ye drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." We adduce these passages not to establish some unknown truth, nor because you do not know them, but to bring them to mind by my pen, and to impress that known truth deeply and vividly upon you — that the Lord might grant, by means of that reminder, through his Holy Spirit, to bring you to the practice of this matter with an exalted heart, and with an embracing conviction, that you have nothing else to do but stir yourself up to this work — not as an occasional task at certain times and in certain matters, but as our continual and only work.
1. Consider, then, once, you who read or hear this read: from whom do you have life, breath, and all that you have? By whose sun, moon, and stars do you see? Whose heaven covers you? Whose earth do you tread? Whose food and drink do you enjoy? Whose creatures do you use? Is it not God's? And you, children of God, from whom do you have that precious Savior, the spiritual life and light, the Holy Spirit who teaches and leads you? Is it not your Father and Lord? Now then, does not everything return to the place from which it came? Come then, let heart and tongue say: "Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen." Rom. 11:36.
2. Let this then enter your heart: to what end has God placed you on the face of the earth? Merely to eat and drink? Merely to labor and rest? To go, after many anxious cares, back whence you came? Dic, cur hic — say, why are you here? Is it not to know your Maker, to acknowledge him, and to exist for his glorification? And to what end, children of God, has the Lord granted you that spiritual light and life? Without end or purpose? Merely so that in this way you might come into heaven?
No, but to glorify him. Isaiah 43:41: "This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise." Isaiah 60:21: "That they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified." 1 Pet. 2:9: "For ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should shew forth the excellencies of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." You would not have been born, you would not live, you would have neither body nor soul, were this not the very end for which you exist. If this, then, is the end for which you have been placed in this world, in the church, in the company of the children of God — what else have you to do but this one thing? Whatever does not serve its own end is good for nothing.
Now, all that you do and pursue that is not for the glorification of God is not directed to that end, and therefore is worthless; and you, who do that alien work, wander far from your true purpose. God has, in a sense, wished to place his honor, his interest, in your hand — children of God! — and has set you in the world and in the church for this very reason, to make his honor known and to defend it. See to it, then, how you guard that precious trust, how you conduct yourself in that great office, and how you carry out that inestimable work.
Natural men — even where they know God — do not glorify him as God, Rom. 1:21. Those who merely will it are not able to do it. Since the Lord, then, has placed you in the world to do this, how dare you neglect it? How dare you aim at anything else, do anything else? Come now, surely you love the Lord far too well to be able to bear it, that the glorious Lord should go unglorified. Well, who then shall do it, if not you? Come then — let your love attend to your purpose. You will not have a long time to do this. You are passing away, and throughout eternity you will have no occasion to do this among men in the world, except in this short little while that perhaps still remains to you. Hasten, then, that at the last you may follow the Lord Jesus in saying: "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do... and now, O Father, glorify thou me." John 17:4/5.
3. But now, lovers of God, is glorifying God, then, such a sad, such a tedious, such a harmful work, that we should need many motives to press you to it? Truly, no. It is your blessedness. Now you always regard your blessedness as a joyful, sweet, glorious thing. So good is the Lord, that he has made his own glorification and your blessedness to be one and the same matter. This is blessedness: to behold God in his perfections, to rejoice in that blessed God, to be subjected to him with full contentment and love, and with holy wonder to give him honor and glory with all that one is and can do. Those who cannot grasp this, who have no desire to be permitted or able to do it, who do not with their whole heart count blessed those who do — they do not yet know clearly, they do not yet desire purely enough, true blessedness.
Hear once how sweetly, how delightfully David set this before him: Ps. 92:2, 5: "It is good to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High: to shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness in the nights: for thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work; I will triumph in the works of thy hands. O LORD, how great are thy works! Thy thoughts are very deep." Ps. 147:1: "Praise ye the LORD, for it is good to sing praises unto our God, for he is pleasant; praise is comely." Indeed, though it were honor enough for a creature that he may glorify God — yet God even promises further to reward that work, saying, 1 Sam. 2:20: "Them that honor me I will honor." If anyone stands surety for God's honor, the Lord will provide for him. If anyone makes God glorious and beloved among men, God will do the same for him — indeed will grant him more and more, and make him more and more fit to glorify him.
Imagine, then, either a solitary soul, or a company joined together, who lay all their sins upon the Lord Jesus — that Lamb who takes away the sin of the world — to the glorifying of the mercy of God; who press through every darkness; who, though they remain struggling with their own dullness and deadness, yet set themselves upon that God whom they believe him to be, and strive to be so themselves, even though they do not see him face to face; and who with their mouths make known to others that the LORD alone is God — merciful, gracious, longsuffering, holy, glorious, everywhere present, all-knowing, and worthy that all things should serve him; and who set themselves to serve, praise, love, fear, and trust that God alone, and to make him the end of all their thoughts, of every conversation, of every deed both small and great; and who direct everything also to this end, that others may do the same — forgetting themselves and others in order to aim at him, to come to rest in him. Do you not count such a one, such a company, blessed? Well then, let these thoughts be quietly stirred up in you, to do the same, and to join together with others toward that end.
4. But all this is still small compared to the supremely worthy glory of God himself. Even if there were in it no blessedness, no sweetness, no profit at all; even if we were not appointed to that end, and it stood in man's own free will whether to do it or to leave it off without sin; even if the Lord had not bound his children by so many benefits — yet if but one small ray of his glory shone upon the soul, the soul would say: "It is enough for me, that God is God, that he alone is worthy of all things; I choose to glorify him all my life, yes, even unto eternity." God is worthy to be glorified, even were there not a single creature in heaven or on earth; and as soon as there is a creature, the Lord obligates that creature to his glorification, simply because he is God.
This reason can move no man, unless God reveal himself to the man and make him see and feel the power and glory of the Godhead. And when the Lord does this for him, he can do nothing else but glorify that God — whether with shame before that holiness, or with the annihilation and vanishing of self before that majesty; whether with reverence before that highness, with wonder at that incomprehensible infinity, with joy over that goodness, or in some other way, according to how the Lord reveals himself to the soul. Indeed, even if a man had a thousand bodies and a thousand souls, he would willingly surrender them all, and would see that they were infinitely too small to praise and serve him with. He would count it reward enough to be annihilated in that.
That man rejoices that all things are subject to the Lord, that all things tremble before him and must stand ready the moment he but speaks. It is his delight to think that all the angels, and all his children, have their eyes fixed on him, and expect all blessedness from him, bow down before him and worship him. Indeed, he sees that the Lord is infinitely above all praise, and that no creature is worthy to see or think anything of the Lord, to extol his name or to praise him for anything; but that it is a great goodness of God that such a thing is permitted to a creature at all.
This I consider enough to stir up our affections, and to keep us dwelling upon the supremely worthy glory of God — and likewise to grieve us, that God is so little glorified, both by others and by ourselves; to linger a little in considering this complaint will not be unprofitable.
1. Come now, lovers of God, you who desire that God be known in all things and by all men upon the whole face of the earth, that they all may give him honor and majesty: let your eyes range once over the whole earth, and see how God does not leave himself without witness among all men — doing good, giving rain from heaven and fruitful seasons; and how he has revealed in them that which may be known of him, how glorious his Name is in all his works. But see how nearly all men's faces and hearts are turned away from him, how they consign him to forgetfulness, neither acknowledging him, nor thanking him, nor glorifying him — just as if he did not exist, as if he were not so glorious, as if he gave and governed nothing at all. Can your heart behold this without pain? Will not zeal and love for the honor of God's Name bring you inward grief, when you see the whole human race so turned away from God? Shall not this sigh well up: Shall that glorious God, then, have no honor from man for all his doing and well-doing? Degenerate, wayward, perverse human race — wickedly gone astray!
2. Come, lovers of God's honor, go now to the church — for that, surely, is the people formed for this very purpose; surely they will hold the honor of Christ, and thus of God: if it does not happen among this people, it will happen nowhere. But how sadly is it ordered here in this regard! The multitude (except for the godly, who by God's singular goodness are still to be found there) is without knowledge, without fear, without love of God, without any desire to draw near to God, without so much as a form of godliness. It is a wicked and godless people, serving the world, living after the lusts of the heart, making it ten times worse than many heathen. For their sake the name of God is blasphemed. Be alone, and grieve over this. Let silent tears wet your cheeks, and let streams of water flow from your eyes. Call it Ichabod. Lament: how is the faithful city become an harlot! How is the crown fallen from our head!
What manifold kinds of godless people have crept into the church! Many openly serve the world, and mock at godliness, glorifying only themselves, and know nothing of glorifying God. Others come to the assembly of believers, join in singing God's praise, stand or bow down in worship, speak and say "praise God," "thanks be to God," speak of God and his Word — yet show by their deeds that it is only from habit and with the mouth, that they follow hypocritical Israel, of whose conduct the psalmist speaks, Psalm 77:36, 37: "They flattered him with their mouth, and lied unto him with their tongue. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant." Against this God speaks, Isaiah 22:13, 14: "Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: therefore behold, I will proceed to deal wonderfully with this people, wonderfully and marvelously."
There are also people who suppose that they especially behold, love, and glorify the honor of God when they are filled with wonder and delight at the creatures, and rest content in that alone — as when one finds oneself carried away in wonder at the bright face of the heavens, at evening, at night, or in the morning, when one takes delight in the loveliness of wood or meadow; or when one attentively considers the arrangement in flower and creature and their movements, or is otherwise moved by something else; or when one brings in the Creator with the mouth, speaking of these things, but does not truly see him in that work, nor rejoices over his attributes displaying themselves there, nor dwells on them with love and wonder — that is no glorification of God, but only a wondering at the creature, just as the Queen of Sheba, by beholding the wisdom and works of Solomon, was so amazed that there was no more spirit in her, 1 Kings 10:5. That wondering at the glory of the Lord, even as displayed in the works of nature, is something wholly different — yet this is not something a natural man is capable of.
There are still other people who go even further, and yet do not glorify God: when one takes the Word of God as one's object of study, and searches out all its mysteries, and marvels at its coherence, at the fulfillment of certain prophecies, at the wonderful things still to come — indeed even at heavenly matters, and precious mysteries and truths — one rejoices over these. And from this it does indeed come about that the sins which the world commits, and which one formerly used to practice, now hold no more grip on him, because he is now so earnestly set upon the knowledge of these things that this earnestness occupies all his affections and all his time; and because he now finds contentment in that knowledge, and therefore has no need or desire for pleasure in anything else. Even outward knowledge has a certain power toward cleansing — see 2 Pet. 2:20: "For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," etc.
All this, however, is no glorifying of God, but a mere clinging to something outward, and therefore amounts to nothing at all. Thus Paul speaks of this, 1 Cor. 13:2: "Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing." To this point even the temporary believers can come — those who receive the word with joy, Luke 8:13. Of such Paul speaks, Hebr. 6:4, 5, 6: "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come," and fall away, etc. Thus Balaam speaks of himself, Num. 24:15, 16: "And he took up his parable and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: he hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, yet having his eyes open."
Let no one content himself with these things, lest he find himself deceived in the end; but let him seek to understand the true practice of glorifying God, and to pursue it. Let those who are truly godly grieve, that though these appear to be something, yet God is nonetheless not glorified even by them. How few are there, then, who take this to heart!
3. Come, lovers of the honor of God's Name, and consider also the precious daughters of Zion: rejoice indeed when you observe that hidden looking-out, that crying, waiting, praying; that rejoicing in comforting encounters; that thanksgiving for what is good; that willingness to offer themselves wholly to God as a living, holy, and well-pleasing sacrifice of praise. But how, in their going, are they still weak and little children! How little sight is there of God! How quickly does their purpose slip from their thoughts! How little is one set upon glorifying God, both in oneself and before others! How little zeal, earnestness, breaking-forth, and display is there! How they lie as if in a swoon!
How many weaknesses and sinful ways reveal themselves in their walk! Oh, that the godly would but walk as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, so that one might see that the love of God possessed their hearts, that the fear of God was before their faces, that they set God as their end both in general and in all their particular deeds! That one might see that they had died to themselves — to honor, to the love and compassion of men, to profit and ease! But how is the gold become dim, how is the fine gold changed! Therefore mourn, mourn, that God is not glorified by the godless (though he shall yet be glorified in them), and that he is so little glorified by his own children. Let this grieve your heart.
Yet do not remain merely standing there in grief; but let this — that God is glorified by so few, and by those few so little — rather spur you on to pursue that work with full readiness of mind and zeal, and to press forward in it with earnestness.
Well then — you have seen the reasons mentioned above. You have heard God's exhortation. All that we have is given by the goodness of the Lord. To glorify him we have been placed in the world and in the church. This is the blessedness and delight of the children of God. God is worthy of it. And yet it is scarcely done. If, then, there is any thought, any desire and love toward God in you, show it now indeed by giving God honor and glory, and begin with the deed, with the doing itself.
1. Turn your eye continually toward God, to behold his glory — in his Word, in his works, and as he reveals himself to your soul. For if anyone would glorify God, he must first have knowledge of God. Not merely a knowledge of the letter — how God describes himself in his Word — nor merely an outward knowledge from nature, but a spiritual and sanctifying knowledge of the Holy Spirit; and that not merely habitual, but actual, continually beholding it now in the very act itself. Of this knowledge Paul speaks, 1 Cor. 4:6: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Cor. 3:18: "But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
If the soul is to glorify God more immediately, between him and herself alone, it is necessary that the Lord reveal himself to that soul, and display this or that one of his perfections, and thereby enfold the soul, so that she becomes aware that this God, as he there reveals himself, is gracious toward her, and that the soul together with this in some measure tastes the power of that perfection — whether this happens through faith, or through some special, sensible working of the Holy Spirit. Or, if the soul is to glorify God in and through his works of nature or of grace, it is necessary that the soul not remain standing in the work itself, but see in it the hand and attributes of God, and thus be drawn further and further from the creature, and nearer and nearer to God, until the creature vanishes, and God alone remains in the heart, and all movements of love and joy are toward God — and that, then, is the glorification of God. If man is now to come to this, he must attentively take note of the gifts and lovingkindnesses of the Lord.
2. Acknowledge God as such, as he reveals himself to the soul — whether more immediately, or in his works. It is not enough merely to see the Lord therein; one must see in such a way that one perceives God as such behind it, as saying, "Yes, there is God; he who does this is God; that is his goodness; that is his righteousness," etc. — that one approve of this with contentment, with love, with joy, with wonder; and that in that acknowledgment one be quietly carried away to the praise of God, as we see in David, Ps. 9:2, 3: "I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee; I will sing praise to thy Name, O thou Most High." We see this in the angel, Apoc. 16:7, who, beholding the judgments of God, acknowledges them with approval, saying: "Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments."
3. Aim continually, in all your deeds, to glorify God, and to cause God to be glorified by others. This happens with oneself, when one suppresses a rising sin, or rouses oneself to a virtue; likewise when one fears God, loves him, rejoices in God — with that intention (mark, I say, with that very purpose) of giving the Lord the honor of reverence, obedience, loveliness, and all-sufficiency; when one humbles oneself as one condemned and runs to him for grace, in order to give him the honor of mercy; when one worships him, in order to give him the honor of being the sole cause of all good, and of being worthy of worship; when one places oneself under his keeping, and there trusts and rests, in order to give him the honor of almightiness and faithfulness; when one willingly, with due contentment and reverence, submits oneself beneath the Lord, saying, "O Lord, truly I am thy servant, I am thy servant" — in order to give the Lord the honor of his majesty. If one does these things, then the glorification of God does indeed lie in that act, even though one's eye is mostly upon one's own blessedness — but this is higher, and it is our duty to advance to that very intention and purpose in so doing.
One also glorifies God within oneself, when with one's thoughts, or in solitude with words, one declares and praises the praise of God. Of this Peter speaks, 1 Pet. 3:15: "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts." And Paul, Col. 3:17: "Singing to the Lord with gladness in your hearts." And David, Ps. 139:17, 18: "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! Should I count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee."
One glorifies God before others: when, with the purpose of glorifying God, one speaks of God and his works, and thus displays and declares his praise to others. Ps. 105:1, 2: "Praise the LORD, call upon his Name, make known his deeds among the peoples. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, speak attentively of all his wondrous works." So did the psalmist, Ps. 66:16: "Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul." This happens also when, with the purpose of glorifying God, one orders one's whole life in such a way that God's image may be seen in it.
God is invisible: natural men do not know him; but as his children, who are made partakers of the divine nature, who are re-created after his image, displaying that image in their walk, so a powerful conviction is often impressed upon the heart of the beholder, that there is a God, that God is holy, good, and so forth. And those who are now born again, and have the beginning of the spiritual life, seeing that image in another, are thereby greatly stirred up in love toward so gracious and good a God. And even if it had not that effect, still, as far as we are concerned, the LORD is glorified insofar as the intention is present to show by our conduct that God is such and such a God; and further, insofar as the intention is present to make that God known to others by our deeds and words, to the end that they too might be stirred up to glorify that God, so that the God worthy of all honor might be praised by many — for in this our whole heart and our whole desire consists. Of this the Lord Jesus speaks, Matthew 5:16: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. John 15:8: Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.
Come now, Christians, let it not be enough to have lived for yourselves, drawing everything out for your own sake — that natural and sinful self — and setting yourself up as your own end: dreadful idolatry! A cancer and a plague to the spiritual life! Let it not be enough to have lived among the creatures, all of which are not worthy of your eye, your ear, your tongue, and least of all your soul, understanding, will, and thoughts. Let it not be enough to have merely lived, and to have remained standing amid sin, amid powerlessness against it, amid unbelief, amid confused thoughts, always wanting to find in yourself something for your own contentment. Ah, rather lay your sins upon the Surety, and cast yourself continually anew upon justification, even if you fall seventy times seven in a day,
every day. Be content, then, with the dispensation in which the LORD is pleased to keep you from time to time: that you need not always act as a grown man, but sometimes as a child. Let it not be enough to have been discouraged over darkness — whether it be that the LORD truly hides his face and sets darkness over your paths, or that one, without submission, desires a greater degree of light. Can you not glorify God out of a heart to which God clearly reveals himself? Then do it with a heart which nevertheless knows from Holy Scripture and the works of God that God is such a God. Can you not do it with feeling? Do it with faith. Though you cannot bring about the effect with the liveliness you might wish, yet have the intention in everything, and repeat that intention again and again, until it becomes a settled habit in you, so that you look to nothing else, aim at nothing, but this alone. And on this ground: do not rest content with forsaking evil and doing good, nor even with doing so in the presence of the fear and obedience of God — though it is absolutely necessary that man do so — but seek in all this to have the aim of glorifying God thereby, whether before yourself or before others, and to act under that conception; and afterward be glad or sorrowful according to whether that aim was present or not, and also according to whether the outcome of what was aimed at is obtained or not. Do not rest content with receiving this or that benefit and resting complacently in it, but seek in all of them to see the hand of God, the goodness of God, and be the more moved to glorify God. Choose rather to lose everything than the sight and the aim of the honor of God; yes, let the enjoyment of pleasure be turned into sorrow for you, when you are thereby reminded of what you are missing. Accustom yourself to him, and so live in him,
and for him, and unto him; truly that is the spiritual, the holy, the joyful, the free, the flourishing life. Once this constancy has been obtained in you, everything you read, see, hear, and think will stir up your aim, and give continual material for the exercise of the thing itself — which we shall now go on to see in the continuation of this Psalm.
How solitary, yet how familiar; with what an upright and perfect heart must such a man walk with God who does this! Almighty and good God, grant this to your favored ones. Amen.
Chapter 3
Upon the whole earth; who hast set thy majesty above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou founded strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained.
Here it is shown: 1. That angels, heathen, and the godly see God and his glory in created things, and that God directs man thither. 2. That God and his glory are seen in the creatures, either by climbing upward from below to the Creator, or by a soul near in disposition looking down upon the creatures as from above. 3. How God is seen in children and in the fabric of heaven and earth. 4. That in these his being, power, wisdom, and goodness are seen and glorified.
Although it is true that the LORD shows himself in a special way, and far more gloriously, in the work of redemption than in that of creation and providence over created things, yet heaven and earth were not created in vain; they are not merely to serve man while he is here, but they exist for the honor of their Maker.
An unregenerate man beholds heaven and earth and God's government over them in a merely natural way; he remains hanging upon the creatures and does not climb up from them to the Creator, and even when he does so, he does it only with an earthly heart and eye, and sees little of God in it — and what little of God he does see there, in that he does not glorify God. But one who now has the enlightened eyes of the understanding, who knows and loves God, and reckons God as his own God, looks upon everything, upon every creature and every motion, as so many letters, as so many mouths, to declare the glory of their God and Father. And since he does not remain hanging upon the creatures, it matters little whether the natural work is of less account than the spiritual work of grace, but only how God reveals himself through and in that creature to the soul.
When the angels saw the creation of the world at its beginning, they saw the glory of the LORD shining in it, sang for joy, and shouted over it. Job 38:3,4.
Adam, when he had just been created, and as yet had no knowledge of the fall or of redemption — did not heaven and earth, and God's governance within them, serve him as a mirror and material by which to behold the glory of his Creator therein, and to glorify him for it?
The heathen, scattered across the whole face of the earth, who have no knowledge of Holy Scripture, see God in the works of nature. Romans 1:20. For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, both his eternal power and Godhead.
God often directs his people to his works of creation and preservation, that they may know him thereby. Jeremiah 5:22. Will ye not fear me, saith the LORD? will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea. Verse 24. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Isaiah 45:12. I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
The holy men of God have often had their eye upon God's works in nature, and glorified God for them. Nehemiah 9:5,6. Let them bless thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, and thou preservest them all alive. So David does, Psalm 104: he begins, Bless the LORD, and thereupon displays the glory of the LORD in the preservation and government of lifeless and living creatures; and he ends with, Bless the LORD, O my soul. Hallelujah. This the prophet set as a ground of the church's trust, saying, Psalm 124:8. Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
Come then, lovers of the honor of God, let yourselves be summoned to see God in his creatures, and in his wondrous government of heaven and earth. Do not merely run past them as though there were nothing to be seen in them, as many people do, following the unreasoning beasts of the earth, as though it were a nothing, of little spiritual worth: no — if you but attentively observe with a spiritual eye, whether you climb upward from below, coming to God through the contemplation of the creatures and so raising your soul to liveliness in order to glorify God, or whether, with your soul living near to God, you look downward and so behold the glory of the LORD — it will appear to you far more than any man could tell you. Yet if it does not please the LORD, by his Holy Spirit, to touch your soul, the whole edifice and all its government will be to you a sealed book, just as in such a case Holy Scripture itself would be. But if the Spirit of the LORD leads you in, God will appear to you therein incomprehensibly glorious.
Let it please you, then, with an attentive soul — one now accustomed to keep God continually in view, and to glorify him — to cast your eye upon
the children and the sucklings.
There a wonder presents itself. Where among the beasts of the earth do you find so helpless a young one as a newborn human being? Consider now: who cares for it? Who provides help for that little one? Who gives it swaddling clothes, a cushion to sit upon, and breasts to suck? When that little child now begins to look with understanding upon its mother or others, or begins to show the first signs of judgment; when that little child now begins to speak, to skip about, and full of gladness shows its charm to people, gladdening even a melancholy soul; when that little child now begins to ask and to answer, and especially concerning divine things; when God begins to cause that little child to be born again, so that one perceives in it knowledge, fear, and love of God, a tenderness of conscience, godliness,
and an inclination toward the LORD — what is more wonderful, more delightful in the world? What does a child of God not find there for his conviction, comfort, and awakening? How fitting is this, to see in it in every way the hand and glory of God? Or would it please you to look upon
the heavens?
Go forth with a godly soul into the open air, and lift your eye upward toward that circuit of the heavens, immeasurable to man, and that great expanse and breadth which it contains within itself, and consider yourself as but a grain of sand encompassed by it.
Behold the fair countenance of the heavens. How pleasant is the distant sky-blue where the reach of sight ends; the airy clouds; the graceful moon; the countless multitude of twinkling stars; the whole face of the heavens beheld together; the still evening; the pensive night; the lovely dawn; the sitting or walking in the shade of a dense wooded grove; the sweet rustle of the wind in the trees; the endless vistas beneath tall trees; the boundless expanse viewed from a solitary height, or a distant land beheld from afar: here one sees green meadows full of cattle, there sown fields standing in their lovely, variously colored, and fragrant bloom, or laden with precious fruits; yonder mountains with valleys lying between them. Here one walks upon the shore of the sea; there one sits beside a gently flowing brook; and everywhere one hears the joyful sound of the birds of the air. If the soul is but in some measure spiritual, will it not be drawn by all this to its Creator and Father, and what manifold stirrings will it not arouse in it? Will it not see more than it can express, and will not the jubilant going forth of the morning
and of the evening bring it home again with gladness and a heart full of praise!
Consider the untraceable variety of colors, of scent, of taste, of voices, of shapes, among birds, fishes, beasts, creeping things, leaves on the trees, and blades of grass in the field. Just try to find two alike.
Consider too the untraceable interlinking of secondary causes, how the one serves and helps the other — heaven helping earth, and on earth one thing helping another. Of which it is spoken, Hosea 2:20,21. I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Israel. When you sit at table to eat, has not the whole fabric of heaven and earth been at work to prepare that meal for you? What an untold multitude of people have served you in it — at the table, in the linen, the knives, the dishes, spoons, glasses, bread, meat, fish, produce of the earth, wine, fire — who have all labored? Through how many hands has it passed before it came to your table! But who set them all to work, and made them serve you in the sweat of their brow? Behold there, behold there the good hand of your Father, who gave the little bird, or the beer, or the fish, its life; who ordained its food with the intention of raising it up for you; who sends out men to catch it, to bring it home, and to prepare it; who has a little tree planted for you, and forbids all his creatures to pluck that apple, that cluster of grapes, and so forth, but commands it to be left hanging for you, and when it is now ripe, to be brought home, even if it lies a thousand miles from where you dwell. Is not all this fit to make you see the hand and honor of God in manifold ways? And does it not draw up a God-loving soul? Consider the tops of
the mountains, the crowns of the trees, the spires of the towers, the tips of the masts — consider whither they point? Is it not upward? And does it not teach you not to remain standing at the creatures, but, departing from them, to know the LORD God, to love him, to delight yourself in him, and to give him honor and glory?
No study is needed here to practice this, to learn what one is to see here or there, from this or from that: the Holy Spirit, who has now given a sanctified soul to a child of God, shows without labor many glorious attributes of God, and makes them seen more clearly and in another manner than the shrewdest natural philosopher could show you; indeed a godly farmer can see a thousand times more in it than an unregenerate learned astronomer, botanist, or naturalist.
In it is to be seen, and it is disclosed clearly, undoubtedly, and from close at hand, that God is. And that apprehension of God's being is more than can be expressed. It cries out to us, and one sees the eternal power of God, Romans 1:20, that with a word he made all things, and by the breathing forth of his power flows into each of the countless creatures, sustaining their being and motion — and that sight is too wonderful for us. One sees in it an untraceable wisdom, in the sight of which one loses oneself in wonder, and cries out with the Psalmist, Psalm 104:24. How great are thy works, O LORD! in wisdom hast thou made them all. From every side shines forth the goodness of God, of which Paul speaks, Acts 14:17. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. This the Psalmist likewise notes, Psalm 104:24. The earth is full of thy riches. These and other virtues of God an attentive godly soul does not perceive so much through reasoning
as with a single glance — not in such a way that the conclusion, God is, and God is thus, remains lying in obscurity, but the LORD reveals himself as clearly in these his creatures and workings to the soul as light reveals itself to the eye of the body. That we do not so see all this, and do not climb up to the LORD with wonder, contentment, and gladness, or, looking down from above, do not observe the glory of the LORD therein and glorify him for it, is a sign of our lifelessness; and it would be more natural than spiritual for anyone to imagine that God cannot be seen spiritually in the creatures — perhaps because he himself remains standing among the creatures, or draws only a dim inference from them, and has no experience of seeing the glory of the LORD in them, whether climbing up from below or looking down from above, with an enlightened spiritual heart.
Who hast set thy majesty above the heavens. When a lover of God climbs upward through the creatures, he sees still more of God's glory than that creature can teach him outwardly; he loses sight of the creature and comes to rest in the Creator, and finds that his glory is too great to be confined within so narrow a circle. Would God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. 1 Kings 8:27. Shall he declare the honor of the glory of his Majesty? All thoughts are too narrow, all words too small; he must say, His greatness is unsearchable. Psalm 145:3. If God has made the earth below and the firmament above, and the whole expanse, so gloriously, to the honor of his glory, much more does his glory show itself in the third heaven, in that city of which he is the architect and builder: there everything is glorious on every side. There the Lord
Jesus has been taken up in glory, and is seated at the right hand of Majesty in the highest heavens. There are the angels, those excellent creatures, surpassing in glory. There the bodies of the godly shall be made conformable to the glorified body of Christ, and shall be wholly manifested in glory, and shall obtain the unfading crown of glory. The glory of God lights up the whole new Jerusalem — so great that Paul, having been caught up into the third heaven, brought back from it only this: that he had heard unspeakable words, that is, things, which it is not lawful — that is, not possible — for a man to utter. Beholding this by faith, one may in believing thought join with all that glorified multitude in heaven, and bow down together before the LORD, and take their crowns, and cast them down together, and say along with them, Hallelujah. To him that sitteth upon the throne be honor and glory. Yet even then one may still say that all this is still nothing compared to that infinite glory which God has in himself; and that one must still end in wonder: Who hast set thy majesty above the heavens! Your glory is infinite! And therefore unto thee be glory and majesty, power and might, both now and for ever. Amen.
Thus we have shown you the highest end, which is to glorify God; and along with it, how a godly soul can glorify the LORD in the work of creation, preservation, and government.
Chapter 4
Verse 5. What is man?
Here it is shown: 1. That man is wretched, since God so declares him. 2. That it is difficult to know oneself as Enosch, a wretched man, as a Nothing, and to bear this in every circumstance. 3. The wretchedness of man is shown: 1. In his sinfulness. 2. His deserving of punishment. 3. His inability to satisfy for sin, and to convert himself. 4. His loathsomeness. 5. His unbearableness.
When a child of God beholds the glory of the LORD, he vanishes away in his own smallness: "Now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself," said Job, chapter 42:5,6. When he believes that the glorious God is his reconciled God, and that all benefits are given him in the LORD's favor, he is put to shame that God should think upon him, and do him good, and says with Jacob, Genesis 32:10, "I am less than all the mercies, and than all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant." So did Job, chapter 7:17,18: "What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?" And in comparison with the glory and goodness of the LORD, and with the wretched man who receives those benefits, the glory of the LORD shows itself the more glorious still; therefore it will not be unprofitable for us to pause a little in beholding man. I have two aims here: to stir up the unconverted, by the sight of their wretchedness, to earnestness, so that
they may be delivered from that misery, and that, being delivered, they may be to the praise of the glorious grace of the LORD. And then also to humble the converted and make them small in their own eyes, and thereby cause them the more to acknowledge and extol the glory of God.
What is man? God himself answers: Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:19. Earth is his mother, earth he is, earth is his food; he treads upon earth until he sinks into the earth, and becomes earth again. Bildad the Shuhite answers: Man is a maggot, and the son of man a worm. Job 20:6. Job answers: A driven leaf, a dry stubble. Job 13:25. David answers: Man is vanity. Ps. 144:4. Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Isaiah answers: Behold, the nations are counted as a drop of a
bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance; all nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. Isa. 40:15,17. Paul says: God hath chosen the things which are despised, and the things which are not. 1 Cor. 1:28.
One may with the mouth talk a little of this wretched Enosch and his nothingness; it may be pleasant to an attentive ear to hear such talk; the imagining of that posture and consideration may be agreeable; one may outwardly perform this or that act, which one did not do out of a genuine intention not to seek one's own, and which so appears to others — but in the whole course of his life, in every occasion, in his dealings with God, with his neighbor, and with himself, truly to know and feel himself in his heart as Enosch, wretched, as a Nothing, and to begin, carry on, and end that work as a Nothing, always in the posture of being a Nothing in his silence, in his speech, in his clothing, in his going out, in his
being treated unfairly, in suffering wrong and harm, in being forsaken and hated by a beloved friend, in seeing that another is ashamed of him, and so forth — to bear all this with a quiet and composed spirit, as a Nothing that cannot be wronged, and against whom no wrong can be done: I say, nature has neither the inclination nor the ability for that. Even though one is persuaded that it is true, that one is a wretched Enosch, a Nothing, that nothing belongs to us, that no one is obligated to us except to revile and destroy us — still nature is so unrighteous, and so covetous of such things, that it continually leans toward them and is thrown into turmoil whenever they are taken away. So it is easy to say, What is man? but to be, in oneself, in that very posture — that he truly is such — there lies the difficulty. And in order to help both myself and you toward that, I will set myself to show what man is.
Know then this, that you are the most wretched creature on the face of the earth: so that your hair would stand on end with terror, your eyes would never be dry of tears, your teeth would never rest from gnashing, nor your hands from wringing, if you could but glimpse your misery. Listen now attentively to me; consider yourself quietly within, while I speak to you; may the LORD grant us to see and feel it.
In many respects you are Enosch, a wretched man.
1. With respect to sinfulness. You have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. God's image, after which you were created in Adam, is gone from you; there is neither light, nor life, nor truth in you; but the shape of the horrible, black devil sits within you. Your soul is in an evil, devilish condition; it is blind, and cannot comprehend
the things that are of the Spirit of God; you are estranged from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you; you are dead in sins; you are apt to devise and commit every abomination; you take pleasure in nothing but what God hates, and take displeasure in nothing but what God loves. Your soul lies in filthy defilement, stench, loathsomeness, and vileness. It is a pool swarming with every kind of hateful, envious, unchaste, unrighteous, proud, lying, God-denying, God-forgetting, God-despising, devilish thought. Your throat is an open sepulcher; with your tongue you practice deceit; the poison of asps is under your lips; your mouth is full of bitterness. Your eyes, hands, feet, and so forth — all your members are weapons of unrighteousness, and you yourself are wholly a servant of sin. You are a child of the devil and a captive of the devil, and so belong to the devil; and thus you are separated from God, and by nature you would gladly remain so; indeed, you stand in direct opposition and enmity against that high, glorious, holy God, both in respect of your filthy natural condition, and in your will and workings. Do you truly believe that you are such? Is your heart fully persuaded of this by sight of it? If not, then believe the Word of God, which so describes you. Consider attentively these sayings: Rom. 3:23. They have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God. John 8:44. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. 1 Cor. 2:14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them. Eph. 4:18. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them. Eph. 2:1. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.
Tit. 3:3. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. Rom. 3:10–18. 2 Pet. 2:19. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption. 2 Tim. 2:26. And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. Rom. 8:7. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God. Rom. 1:30. Haters of God.
And what greatly aggravates your misery is that you are of a contemptible, hateful, malicious, murderous, unclean lineage. A bad chick from a bad egg: there is not one in your entire lineage — count back over five thousand years to Adam — but who was, by nature, in his heart a devilish monster, a liar and a murderer, before his new birth. And insofar as you were
a son of man, so you had his corrupted nature — that is, you lacked the image of God, and had the image of the devil. So your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. And as for your birth: in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. Ezek. 16:3,4,5. You are unclean, born of one that is unclean. Job 14:4. Flesh of flesh. Job 3:6. Conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity. Ps. 51:7. By nature a child of
wrath. Eph. 2:3. Evil from his youth up. Gen. 8:21.
Do not read these Scripture passages hurriedly past, merely because they are already well known to you, but set yourself before God, and hear those words from the mouth of the LORD, speaking thus of you and to you, and press them then into your heart, and become undoubtedly persuaded that you are such, because God declares you to be such.
But it is necessary that there be in you more than merely a sight of your sinfulness through faith. There must also be added to it a sight of feeling. And for this it is necessary that you seek to obtain a good knowledge of the virtues and vices set before us in the Law; read for that purpose the Catechism, from Lord's Day 34 to Lord's Day 45. Apply yourself to this; examine your omissions and commissions from your youth up; attend to your inclinations, thoughts, words, and deeds. May it please the LORD to make known to you the crookedness of your nature, and to make you see that nothing good dwells in you. Yet even that will not suffice, unless it also pleases the LORD to give you a sight of his highness and holiness, and to make you see that sin is a denial, a rejection, a dishonoring of God. And that you thus become aware of what Job said: Job 42:5,6. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
There you lie now, like an abominable monster, smothered in your sins. Oh, that the LORD would once make you see this!
2. You are Enosch, a wretched man, in respect of the temporal and eternal punishments that follow upon sin. It is not sin alone that makes you wretched, but through it you have come into a state at the very consideration of which you ought to be seized with terror on every side. For
you are not worthy to tread the earth; it is a wonder that the earth bears you, and does not open its mouth to swallow you alive, and that fire does not fall from heaven and consume you along with Sodom and Gomorrah. You are not worthy to draw breath through your nostrils, to behold the sun, to have the vault of heaven cover you, to put a morsel of bread into your mouth, or to have a thread of clothing on your body. Rather you deserve to be trampled by every beast, hunted by every man, and crushed by the devil as his prey. Yet that is not all: look up, and think for once on God — on that holy, righteous, that true God, of whom David says, Ps. 5:4,5,6. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. Thus Paul speaks of it, Rom. 2:8,9. Unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth: indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil. Hear that thundering sound, Gal. 3:10. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. And again, 2 Thess. 1:8. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, that God would once make you feel, unconverted one, what the wrath of God is, so as to save you through fear, seeing you are not drawn by the goodness of the LORD.
Consider once the expressions God uses of this. Ps. 76:7. Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? Ps. 90:11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. Heb. 10:31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Consider once the anguish of the saints, when God hid his face from them, and let them feel his wrath but a little.
David, fearing this, prays, Ps. 6:1. O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Jeremiah could endure everything, but at the wrath of God he trembled, saying, chapter 17:17: Be not a terror unto me. How Job complained of it, Job 6:4. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Heman thus expresses his anguish, Ps. 88:16,17. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.
Go and consider the Lord Jesus, who as Surety had taken upon himself the sins of his own — how he became a curse, and tasted all that may be called wretchedness; how he was assailed by the devil, rejected by men, mocked and derided, condemned, hanged upon the cross; and how in all this the wrath of God pressed down upon his soul even unto death.
If this still cannot move you, then go once to that dreadful, condemned pit, and hear there the gnashing, the wailing, the grinding, that dreadful woe, woe, woe; that terror and that wild raging of conscience among the damned in that eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels — who throughout eternity shall never enjoy so much as a ray of light or a single hour of stillness, but shall remain, with an inexpressible despair of ever being delivered, and with an unspeakable
sense of the wrath of God, assailed throughout all eternity.
Behold, all this you deserve, you who read this or hear it read; and perhaps many of you will come to experience it, and must have that pit which burns with brimstone and sulfur as your portion.
Yet all this will not touch this one or that one; he will perhaps think himself too strong to be so disturbed by these things, that his conscience cannot be embittered, that he can answer it all with reason, and so on. But I assure you, that when God gives someone a trembling heart, and it becomes a terror to him, he will indeed find that the terror of conscience alone will be an unbearable anguish to him. Oh, that you would now, with sober understanding, consider these things, believe them, and apply them to yourself, and that your heart might be dismayed by them — whether unto conversion, if you are still in your natural state, or unto glorifying and thanking God, who has freed you from all this through his Son!
3. You are Enosch, a wretched man, by reason of your inability to save yourself from sin and its punishment. Yet this misery lies as deeply hidden from man as the other two: either there is no feeling of sin, no anguish over God's wrath; or, if some disturbance does arise, one blunts the full weight of that distress by an imagined confidence in one's own strength. It runs thus: I shall pray to God for grace, I shall convert myself, and do my best, and so I hope God will be gracious to me. This is the net with which the devil drags thousands of men into hell; this is the way by which millions of people wretchedly deceive themselves, and do not become aware of it until, like the rich man, they open their eyes in hell, when it is too late. And ah, that this
sting were not still lodged in the heart of God's children! Not that they hold it as a matter of judgment — but in practice it reveals itself well enough, that they do not turn to God simply as a Nothing, as an utterly destitute orphan, in order — as wretched as they are, without having any disposition or preparation of their own toward it — to be justified freely, and, however powerless, perverse, and resistant they are, to be converted, sanctified, and led by the almighty power of God alone. So easily does something of that own self creep in underneath.
I tell you on God's own authority, that God will not forgive a single sin without punishing it, either with temporal death, or with eternal damnation. That God punishes sins also with eternal damnation is evident, among many testimonies, in the example of the first world, of which Peter says that, God having brought the flood upon their bodies, he cast their souls into prison. 1 Pet. 3:19,20; 2 Pet. 2:5. Add to this the example of Sodom and Gomorrah, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, Jude verse 7. The angels that sinned God also spared not, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. 2 Pet. 2:4. Cast your eye at once upon the day of the last judgment, in which God will say to all the wicked: Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Matt. 25:41. Yet it lies quietly in man, as though punishment were merely an act of God's sovereignty — that he would willfully punish some who remain unconverted, and by that same free will forgive others their sin without punishing it, and receive a sinner into heaven simply because he worships him. But this is a soul-destroying
imagination, arising from ignorance of the nature of God and of his holy word — arising also from comparing God with a man, or from viewing the matter only from man's side; and so a false notion of mercy blocks the sight of God's highness, righteousness, and truth — four things which together require that the sinner be punished with temporal and eternal punishments.
1. Thus I say, punishment flows from God's highness and majesty, which is so glorious that it obliges, by its very nature, all reasonable creatures to submission, glorification, and obedience. Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain. Jer. 10:7. Now when anyone sins, he breaks that bond, and, as far as in him lies, disparages God and his attributes, and despises and tramples upon them. Now God loves himself, will give his glory to no other, and therefore also will not have it dishonored; and he would let his honor and majesty be dishonored, and trodden under the feet of the offender, if he did not maintain it by punishing the offender — and so he would deny himself, which is impossible. 2 Tim. 2:13. From this ground it also flows that, among men, the crime of injured majesty is punished with death, without mercy.
2. Punishment also flows from God's holiness. On this account God hates iniquity, Ps. 45:7. And he also hates the sinner, Ps. 5:5. Holiness and sin stand directly opposed to one another, and therefore there is no fellowship, but a war, between these two, 2 Cor. 6:14,17. No man will or can take a squashed toad into his hand out of love, hold it to his face, kiss it with his mouth, because there is such contrariety between those natures. One who is holy, as such, will
not love that filth, nor take it in his arms and kiss it, but will shrink from it in horror. A man of clean disposition will not, for pleasure and delight, put on a leper's soiled garment. Infinitely less can the Holy God embrace the sinner as a sinner in love, and unite him with himself; and if he cannot do that in the continuance, neither can he do it at the beginning, for the case is the same; rather, the holiness of God requires that such a sinner, as such, be thrust away from him. Therefore God is said to be sanctified when he punishes. Lev. 10:3. Now, to be thrust away from God's presence is everlasting destruction. 2 Thess. 1:8.
3. Punishment flows from the righteousness of God. Righteousness consists in giving to each his due, and, in a judge, in dealing with the accused according to his deserving. Now God is righteous, John 17:25 — indeed, so much so that he will by no means clear the guilty, Exod. 34:7 — that his judgment is according to truth, Rom. 2:2 — and that he will render to every man according to his deeds,
Rom. 2:6. Indeed, since he that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, both are alike abomination to the LORD, Prov. 17:15 — shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Gen. 18:25. The heathen, who have not the revealed will, his word, nevertheless know the right of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death. Rom. 1:32. If a judge among men may not release a known murderer but must put him to death, and if that human justice is but a small sample of the righteousness of God, how then should God leave sin, whose wages is death, unpunished? No, by no means.
4. Punishment flows from the truth of God. God has said, in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die. Gen. 2:17. Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. Deut. 27:26. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Ezek. 18:20. If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. Rom. 8:13. And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent. 1 Sam. 15:29. Weigh these things now with due consideration, and see that through praying and self-reformation there is no hope to be had of forgiveness of sins, but that sin will surely be punished by God with temporal and eternal death. Here your soul ought now to become distressed: your sins are committed, they stand there; the punishment surely follows upon sin, and you are not able to bear that punishment and overcome it; you cannot give God your ransom; the redemption of your soul is too costly. So then all hope in yourself is gone. Oh, that you were hopeless in yourself, and that the LORD would be pleased to reveal to you the way through the Mediator and Surety, Jesus Christ! What a holy, righteous, and fitting way that is to obtain forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God! And may every believer rejoice in this way, and continually occupy himself, as a sinner, being freely justified by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus!
As impossible as it is for you to bear the punishment, and to satisfy for your guilt, so impossible is it also for you to convert yourself: there is in man's heart an imagined confidence that he is able to do something, and on that ground he is not greatly distressed about his state; for, he supposes, it lies in his own hand, and he will yet convert himself sometime. On this ground he takes courage, and the gnawing of conscience somewhat ceases,
once he has resolved to convert himself, for now, he supposes, it will go well. And on this ground he is displeased with himself when he has not followed through on his resolution, just as if there were in him still so much goodness that he could, of himself, steadily and rightly, be willing to convert. There is also in man a false notion of what conversion is. One imagines that conversion consists merely in forsaking gross sins and doing some good deeds. Whereas conversion is an entire turning of the man in the very disposition of his soul, understanding, will, thoughts, words, and deeds. The Holy Spirit is given to the man who is now to be converted, and having taken possession of the soul, shows it its own filthiness, so that a loathing, a disgust, shame, smallness, and distress on account of its state arise; and along with this the Holy Spirit shows that soul God, the Mediator, and grants it an apprehension of the reconciliation and union of the soul with God, of love, fear, and obedience toward God. Upon this the soul falls in love; it goes to the Mediator Jesus, to receive those blessings out of his fullness. Its pain and sorrow are over the soul's clinging to all that is visible, over its sins; its seeking is the exercise of fellowship with God and nearness to him; and according to whether it is far or near, so it is sorrowful or glad. It lives in an averted disposition from the world and sin, even though it is still at times taken captive by them, and in a disposition turned toward God for light, life, Spirit, strength, and comfort, and so on. It is not content with any doing or forsaking, unless it takes place in faith, through the union of its soul with the Lord Jesus Christ, and through him with God. Unless it takes place in the represented presence of the LORD, in
love, in fear, in obedience, and in self-denial. It has an aversion to sinful and to all merely civil and natural company, but its delight is in the godly, and it would rather be despised and oppressed with them, than be honored and filled with earthly goods on the other side.
This, in a word, is conversion as it has been set forth: what think you? Do you know how to make yourself, of darkened, dead, and earthly, become enlightened, living, and heavenly? If you know yourself at all, you must confess that not only can you not take a single step toward it, but that it is impossible for you to obtain even the first beginning of life. And that no deeds are of any worth unless they proceed out of this life.
Pause a while here with your thoughts, until you see and feel your blindness, wickedness, and powerlessness. To that end lift up your heart to assent to what God says of you in this respect. Eph. 2:1. You who were dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. 4:18. Darkened in understanding, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them. Jer. 13:23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. Matt. 7:17,18. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Yet it is necessary that you not only believe that you are such, but also feel it by experience. Come then, be converted from this very moment; enlighten your eyes; change the disposition of your heart; so order your thoughts, words, and deeds as has been related above; observe how long you continue at it, how your way corresponds with it, until
you see and feel that you are far too wicked to be and to live in such a way; and that if you are to be changed, the LORD must take that stony heart out of you, and give you a heart of flesh, and cause you to walk in his ways. And oh, that the truly converted also continually acknowledged their own powerlessness, that they might continually sink away into their own Nothingness, and acknowledge that the LORD alone, expressly, gives them that disposition, thought, or deed — and that they would glorify him for it!
4. You are Enosch, a wretched man, in respect of your loathsomeness. Someone may be wretched, and his wretchedness may be fit to move others to pity. But know that your misery is not such as to be pitied, but hated; there is nothing lovable in you by which God or any creature could be moved to compassion or to any inclination to help you; but everything cries out to crush you and cast you away from the presence of God and men. You are Lo-ruhamah, not pitied. Hos. 1:6. Hateful. Tit. 3:3. A generation of perverseness. Jer. 7:29. No eye pities you; you are loathsome. Ezek. 16:5. An abomination. Ps. 5:6. A generation of vipers. Matt. 3:7. Such you are — and it is thus that God, the angels, and believers look upon you.
5. You are Enosch, a wretched man, in respect of your intolerableness. For man, sinful, damnable, powerless, and loathsome as he is, is nevertheless full of pride, which shines forth everywhere in his inclinations, thoughts, words, and deeds: if he but had a sight of what he was, and then paid attention to his deeds, he would confess himself the most intolerable creature on earth. This intolerableness shows itself in the following particulars.
1. In that sinful, damnable, powerless, loathsome creature there is an imagination that he is something: one is learned in his own eyes, another thinks himself wise and clever, a third fancies himself strong; others think, I am handsome and attractive, I am rich, that house, that land is mine, I have such clothes, such jewels, and so forth. I am of such and such extraction and descent. So-and-so are my cousins and kinsmen. Do I not hold such an office? and so on. On these and similar things his thoughts easily dwell; this tickles him, he delights in it, it makes him proud and bold, it makes him lift up his head, and swells him up in himself like a bladder filled with wind. Insufferable fool!
2. From that imagination arises the inclination to be honored, loved, feared, and served; and although he knows that in himself he is base enough, he still fancies himself greater than this one, and equal to that one, and therefore he ought to have as much regard and affection, and so on, as they — indeed, such people ought to regard him accordingly.
3. From that inclination there springs, in his deeds, the aim of being honored accordingly. This he has in view in his speaking, in his silence; this he has in view in his clothing, both while putting it on and while looking at himself in the mirror and brushing it off. This is his aim in his going, his standing, the gestures of his body and countenance, in avoiding certain people and in keeping company with others. And were this not so driving him, many a man would be lazier than a donkey, slower than a tortoise, more mute than a fish, filthier than a pig, more slovenly than a beggar, more godless than a heathen. But honor and love are the first and only wheel that turns him and keeps him going. That he might be honored, he greets another; that another might praise him, he praises that one first; for the sake of being loved in return he makes
a show as if he had those qualities. And seeing that this does not succeed, one ceases doing what one did before, or does it more listlessly and sluggishly, because the wind that filled the sails has died down; or one does it the less, and more ashamedly, so as not to lose altogether whatever regard and affection there might still be — and so one seeks to hide oneself.
You vile monstrosity, you would still be God! For all that is due to God alone, you want done to yourself; you make yourself the end of your own doing, and would have it be the end of another's work as well.
O horror! How does the earth still bear such a man? Behold there a mirror of the abominableness of man in his nature. If there is any faith in you of the immortality of your soul, of eternal glory and damnation, then take this to heart. Is it then all the same to you, whether you wallow in darkness and spiritual filth with heartache and misery, or whether you walk in the light and are adorned with holiness? Whether you have God as an enemy and an angry Judge, or whether, being reconciled with him, you live with him in sweet peace and friendship? Whether you are a curse upon the earth, or a blessing? Whether you are a child of God, or a child of the devil? Whether after this life you are taken up into glory, or cast down into the pit among the damned? Whether you consider and believe these things or not, they are nevertheless true, and you shall come to know it. Therefore, do awaken, do become earnest, become distressed, look about you everywhere on every side, for in yourself there is no help to be found toward becoming saved: do not deceive yourself, whether by carelessness, or by imagining that all will go well with you. Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.
And you, believer, do not forget your own origin either — yes, that you still have that same nature, so far as the old man still remains in you. Dwell much on these considerations. Begin, carry out, and end all your doing as an Enosch, who is so wretched in his nature; and then, considering God's unfathomable goodness toward you, exalt the glorious name of God the more, and say with heart and tongue: Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy's sake. Ps. 115:1. And looking upon yourself, let this saying lie buried in your heart: what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Chapter 5
Verse 6. That thou art mindful of him, and visitest him?
Here it is shown: I. a. The profitableness of believingly beholding that the Remembering of God is the first cause of man's salvation. b. That one must not test this mystery against human understanding. c. That one must know that all the ways of God are holy. d. That God is sovereign and free in all his doing. e. That the LORD does not work as a man does. f. That the aim of God is the glorification of his Name. g. That God, from all eternity, without regard to their qualities, thought upon certain particular men, in distinction from others, so as to bring them surely to salvation. II. That all those who are an object of this eternal thinking: a. Are to consider this Remembering of God with understanding. b. Are to rejoice over it. c. Are to comfort themselves with it in the cross, against sin. d. Are hereby to be strengthened in prayer. e. Are hereby to be awakened to sanctification. f. Are hereby to glorify God. III. How the doubting and weak believer are to conduct themselves in this regard. IV. How the natural man and the ungodly are to use this truth. V. The actual visiting of God with blessings.
Thus we have shown you your all-encompassing misery in respect of sinfulness, deservedness of punishment, powerlessness, loathsomeness, and intolerableness: if you were now to be delivered, that would surely have to come from another, and the thoughts and movements to help you would not be your own, but would have to have their origin in the helper himself. Come then, let us climb up to that, and see the first origin of man's redemption: this is the remembering of God toward man.
That thou art mindful of him. If one rightly understands this remembering of God toward man, and rightly uses it, it will produce a continual disappearing into our own nothingness, a continual wonder at the goodness of God, a firm ground of comfort and gladness in all sinful and sorrowful adversities, and aptitude in prayer: it will make the soul melt in love, draw it away from all its own works, and cause it to depend on the LORD in everything, and make it willing to praise and glorify the LORD with gladness as the sole, sole, altogether sole fountain of the beginning, middle, and end of its salvation; crying out with Paul: Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. And with the congregation, Psalm 100. O all ye lands, make a joyful noise unto the LORD, come before his presence with singing: know ye that the LORD he is
God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Give yourself over quietly, then, to the contemplation of this mystery, which by many is rejected, by others narrowly speculated upon, or left in deep forgetfulness, but rightly practiced by few, to their unspeakable advantage.
I say that God, to whom all his works are known from eternity, has from eternity thought in love upon certain ones out of that fallen human race, ordaining them to an eternal salvation; and continually still thinks upon them, in order to lead them by an appointed way to that salvation.
This holy mystery may not be touched with unclean hands, nor tested against natural reason, since the natural man does not comprehend the things of the Spirit of God, but they are foolishness to him, he cannot discern them. 1 Cor. 2:14. But one must approach this with a heart believing the Word, a heart which, in beholding, practices, and in practicing, beholds. And do not imagine that you shall see through this mystery — no, there are heights in it beyond your comprehension, which, were you to try to sound them with your small understanding, would ruin you; therefore do not seek to know what has not been written concerning it, and yet do not remain ignorant of what God has revealed to you, ending always in the glorification of the incomprehensibility of God and his works. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Rom. 11:33.
Let this then be settled beforehand, that all the ways of God are holy; and say with full assent: I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. Deut. 32:3,4.
Impress it upon your heart, that, just as the LORD is holy in all his ways, so he is also sovereign and absolutely free in all his doing: follow Nebuchadnezzar's example here, who said: All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? Dan. 4:35. Take heed that your heart does not rebel against God's free right over all things; for he will not have his sovereignty over his creature disputed. Give him, then, honor and glory for his freedom; gladly make Paul's words your own from your very soul, Rom. 9:20–23. Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory?
Persuade your soul, along with this, and bring it into an active assurance, that the LORD does not work as a man does. Man sees only what is before his eyes, and takes counsel about things once he now sees their beginning: take heed, then, that you do not measure God by yourself. God first decrees all things with all their circumstances, and — because he has decreed them,
having decreed them for that time — therefore this happens to them, therefore they move as they do. God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Eph. 1:11.
Come now and observe that God purposed to have himself glorified in his mercy, and that to that end he ordained these and those men, and that he purposed to create them for that end, to shut them up under sin, that he might have mercy upon them, Rom. 11:32, to redeem them through his Son, to regenerate, justify, sanctify, and so glorify them. This is the thinking of God upon man.
God does not think thus upon all men — no, but only upon those whom he has foreknown and foreordained, Rom. 8:29; upon those few elect, as distinguished from the many called. Matt. 20:16.
Upon these the LORD thinks in particular, knowing them by name, in respect of which their names are said to be written in heaven, Luke 10:20; in the book of life, Phil. 4:3.
He does not begin to think upon them only now that they are born, but from all eternity he thought upon them. Eph. 1:4,5. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children.
And therefore God prepared for his elect the place of glory, which they should have for their inheritance, even then when he created heaven and earth. Matt. 25:34.
This thinking on their behalf is a steadfast and unchangeable thinking. That the purpose of God according to election might stand. Rom. 9:11. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Rom. 11:29. For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? Isa. 14:27.
He thinks upon them, and not upon others, not because they were better, but purely because it was so pleasing to him, of his own free goodness. Matt. 11:26. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. Luke 12:32. It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. It is an election of grace. Rom. 11:5.
Enter now into this sanctuary, into these inner chambers, and behold this mystery attentively — you who are now inwardly, effectually called through the Word by the Spirit, Rom. 8:30; who now believe in the Lord Jesus, Acts 13:48; who now depart from iniquity, 2 Tim. 2:19; who have taken up a struggle against sin, and have become partakers of holiness, Eph. 1:4. You, take note of these things, and attend with understanding to the mercies of the LORD. Consider and acknowledge, that this thinking of God upon you is the first fountain out of which your life and salvation flow. You did not yet exist; you would never have come into being, had not God thought upon you, that you should be. And now that you are — what are you? Enosch, a wretched man, sinful and damnable. What goodness of God is upon you, that, while he leaves others by the million to lie, and sends them because of their sins to eternal destruction, he thought upon you in his eternal counsel of peace, and chose you to be his child, and an object of his incomprehensible grace! Why was the gospel proclaimed to you? Why are you called? Whence comes it that you know and receive Jesus? That you seek God and delight to fear his Name? It is entirely and only because the LORD from all eternity thought upon you in love,
and elected you to make you blessed. Let a holy wonder now arise from this in your quiet meditations, so as to say with Hagar: Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? Gen. 16:13. So as to cry out with our Psalmist,
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
And if there be any stirring within you that this should remain so, rejoice over it: that God, that the LORD, that high and exalted One, thinks upon you, a worm, and that in love and goodness. What more could you have? What more could you desire? What more could God do for you, than to think upon you with such love? Therefore rejoice over it, according to the Lord Jesus's exhortation, Luke 10:20.
Here is comfort against all the sorrowful adversities that the LORD sends you in this life. For they are all according to the predetermined hand and counsel of God, Acts 4:28, and the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Acts 2:23. He performeth the thing that is appointed for me. Job 23:14. And moreover, all those adversities shall not harm you, for we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose, Rom. 8:28. Would he who has known you as his own from eternity, and has thought upon you in love, and still thinks upon you, let anything harmful come upon you? No. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Rev. 3:19.
Here is comfort against sins: sins press down a child of God, they often take from him all zest and life; what dismal thoughts do they not stir up in an elect one! But observe: He who out of free goodness has thought upon you in love as his child, and has chosen you without any works of yours, without being moved by any quality in you, out of sheer grace, out of sheer love which had its beginning in himself alone, who has loved you with an everlasting love that does not change — yes, who for that very purpose shut you up under sin, that he might have mercy on you — will surely glorify those whom he has known,
and will not cast you off for your sins. Therefore stand fast in the faith, and, on the ground of eternal election, take boldness to enter into the Sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, with a true heart in full assurance of faith. God's decree does not change; his love remains always the same. Let an ungodly man, let a natural man, stumble at this ground of comfort — they do not understand this mystery; but you, who have become partakers of the grace of regeneration, of faith, of godliness, even if only in its beginning, so long as it is sincere — you, make use of this precious truth, do not let it lie unused, lift yourself up by it, strengthen yourself by it. Press this deeply into your heart: God has thought upon me, and still thinks upon me.
This remembering of God toward his own gives support in prayer: when one draws near to God as to his Father, and can say: My God, thou hast indeed known me by name, I have indeed found grace in thine eyes, thou hast indeed from all eternity thought upon me in love, and appointed me to the praise of thy glorious grace; now then, my Father, behold, such and such miseries press upon me, such and such a good thing I lack — may it now please thee to look down upon thy favored one, and to hear me! What boldness, what familiarity, what confidence of being heard, and what quiet submission does that give!
This remembering of God toward his own, just as it is the wellspring from which God gives his Spirit unto sanctification to his own, Eph. 1:4, so it is also, for one who truly believes and rightly perceives, having now received the Holy Spirit in order to know the things freely given him of God, a means, I say, by which God makes the soul alive and zealous for holiness, to serve the LORD as a child, to obey out of pure love, and to work only
from his strength, and not from one's own. Let a natural man fail to grasp this, and imagine that on such grounds one would become careless; a godly person finds it quite otherwise, and Scripture also teaches us otherwise — namely, that every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. 1 John 3:3. And since a godly person knows that sanctification is not the cause of his salvation but a beginning of salvation itself, he works purely out of love. And so, however much his sins grieve him, and however much he longs for sanctification, he can submit himself to the dispensation of the LORD, to be led toward salvation in whatever way God wills to be glorified through him.
And finally, a godly person, seeing that the beginning, middle, end, and all of it, without any doing of his own, or without contributing any motive on his own part, is from God alone, will find this soul once again quickened to bring everything back to God, and to give him honor and glory, thanking him from the heart for it, as Paul does on behalf of others: 2 Thess. 2:13. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Here the attentive soul will find opened up before it the Freedom, Goodness, Mercy, Wisdom, Power, and other attributes of God, and will find that it sweetly sinks down into these bottomless depths, and, coming up again, worships and rests in that which it cannot comprehend, glad that God's glory is so far beyond its grasp.
But it may happen that not everyone is thus assured of this love of God toward him, and so of his election: some indeed have
grace in them, yet they do not yet know what God has given them. Others do know grace in themselves, but it is not granted them to draw near to this fountain; rather they occupy themselves with the little streams that flow out of this fountain — namely, cleaving to Jesus, praying, calling, weeping, striving against sin, and so forth. These must know that it is their duty to grow, and to give diligence to make their calling and election sure, 2 Pet. 1:10 —
not sure before God, for so it stands sure already, but sure to themselves, that thereby they may have deeper comfort, more steadfast trust, more ardent love, more constant struggle, purer holiness, and may be made more fit to glorify God in the acknowledgment of their own Nothingness, and that everything flows down to them from God — bringing everything back to this love-thinking upon them, and drawing everything once more out of election, or rather seeing it flow down to us from there.
But you who as yet have no life, but still lie smothered in your misery, as has been shown above, come, let your thoughts for once move calmly over this matter, whether the LORD has also thought of you in his love or not. As long as you remain dead, living after the flesh, you can and may have no notion of being one of those the LORD has thought upon: but consider that all your salvation, if you are ever to obtain anything, must come out of this source. Consider that you do not know what will yet become of you, what the LORD will be pleased to give you. Consider that you well deserve to be damned for your sins. Consider that God has laid upon you as a duty, that you convert, and believe the gospel: God says, behold, there is my Son, in whom is all fullness to save; take your refuge there, receive him as Prophet,
Priest, and King; forsake that earthly, that sinful life; live in love and fear of God, and in all godliness. This now to do is your duty: hereupon God adds the promise, that those who believe in the Son, with a faith that is living through good works and working through love, obtain forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation. If you then neglect this, having no desire to it, but go on in your old course, consider that you will then perish; and, perishing so, that you will have no one to blame but yourself. But if you hear, believe, and are converted — behold, there is a gift blossoming out of this eternal thought of God upon you in his eternal election; acknowledge it, and climb upward from below, thinking: he who has given me his Spirit, life, faith, godliness, has known me, and chosen me, for he gives these things to none but such as these. And so the soul will say in wonder: What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man,
that thou visitest him? The LORD has not only had thoughts of the heart concerning his children from eternity, but he continually still thinks upon them — not with empty thoughts, but with an effectual thinking, so that in thinking upon them he visits them and sends them salvation. When God withholds his help for a time, the saints then express that as being forgotten. Ps. 13:1. How long wilt thou forget me? Then they pray that God would remember them: Ps. 25:7. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me. Neh. 5:19. Think upon me, my God, for good. For such a thinking of God upon them the children of God have a great longing; for that is a thinking in love: among men, those who mutually love one another are glad to think of one another even when absent; so too, the
thinking of God upon his children is to them a thousand times more precious than all luxury. When they possess the heart of God, when his love is toward them, and he actually thinks upon them in love, and they believe this, and become aware of it through some special prevenient favor toward soul or body, and see in that favor that loving thought of God toward them — that delights them far more than the luxury itself. Besides, they know that it will not stop at a bare thinking, but that help will surely follow, as we see, Ps. 106:45,46. And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies. He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives. Therefore Jeremiah joined these two words together: Remember me, and visit me. Jer. 15:15. It is so sweet that we read, Gen. 8:1: And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged. Noah had been tossing about on the waters, and had now been so long in the ark that there seemed no prospect of deliverance, neither from himself nor from any creature was it to be expected. But the LORD helped — and how did he help? He thought upon Noah, and so he helped. So it is: when the LORD remembers, he visits.
Chapter 6
Of Christ's Humiliation
Verse 6. And hast made him a little lower than the angels.
Here it is set forth: 1. The mystery of the Holy Trinity. 2. The covenant of redemption between the Father and Immanuel. 3. What regard and working the Surety had, before his incarnation, toward his children in the Old Testament. 4. The steps and acts of his Humiliation. 5. That one must behold these, and in them particularly: 1. The necessity. 2. The power. 3. The love of Christ.
This applies both to the Lord Jesus Christ, as appears from Heb. 2:9, and to his members, each in his own way. Let us first behold Jesus, both in his humiliation and in his exaltation, and from there see what glories his children obtain through him.
All other revealed mysteries, all other benefits shown, vanish beside this one; all other wonderings cease, when a man is permitted to behold this: in this respect one may give room to inexpressible thoughts, crying out: what is man, that thou givest him Jesus Christ as a Surety?
Now, having seen from where all the salvation of man flows, namely that remembering of God upon wretched man, let us now also for a while meditate quietly, and, with the desiring angels, look into that royal, that divine, that soul-refreshing way by which the LORD so greatly glorifies his children.
Here nothing is disclosed but a depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, nothing but the unsearchableness of his ways.
The LORD God, having purposed to make known the glory of his grace and mercy to his elect, the benefits of his mercy, has shut them all up under disobedience, that he might have mercy upon them all, and delivers them from their misery in accordance with his righteousness, which does not allow sin to remain unpunished, and the guilty to be held guiltless, as has been shown above. Therefore he has bestowed grace on his own in Christ, the Beloved, ordaining him to be their Head, Surety, and Savior.
In order rightly to know this humiliation and exaltation of his, it is necessary that we behold God as he has revealed himself in his Word: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. John 5:7. There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. Matt. 28:19. Baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Against this the carnal reason rises up in revolt, unwilling to accept anything but what it sees with the eye, touches with the hand, or can grasp
with the understanding, and wants to make God equal to man. Not so with you: accept readily, simply, without suspicion, what God says, however it may then appear to natural reason; remember always that God is infinitely above your comprehension, and that you are but a small creature, and, as regards understanding, a great dumb beast. So sink down into your own darkness, and worship that which you cannot comprehend. Believe then that God is One in Essence and Three in Persons; distinguish between the Persons with respect to their manner of subsisting and working, each being that same divine Essence; take care that you not be quietly led away into a threeness of gods. Gregory of Nazianzus says it well: I cannot think of the One, but immediately I am surrounded by the splendor of the Three; and I cannot distinguish the Three, but immediately I am driven back to the One. Yet it is the Holy Spirit alone who reveals this mystery to the heart. Believing this now, we must fix our eye upon that Eternal Counsel of the Holy Trinity concerning the salvation of the elect, of which it is spoken, Zechariah 6:12-13: Behold a man whose name is THE BRANCH, who shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. Yes, he shall build the temple of the LORD, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both. The counsel makes known wisdom: the counsel of peace is that wise and steadfast purpose to bring man, being at enmity with God, back again into friendship. The counsel of peace is between the Man — the most excellent of men in holiness, strength, and glory, whose name is THE BRANCH, who should spring forth out of the felled stump of Jesse — and Jehovah God the Father. This counsel was that a house should be built for the LORD, which is the Church, 1 Timothy 3:15, whose members, as living stones, are built up into a spiritual house, 1 Peter 2:5.
To this end the Holy Scripture teaches that the Father ordained the Son to be a Surety. 1 Peter 1:20: who indeed was foreknown before the foundation of the world. This the Supreme Wisdom makes known, Proverbs 8:13: I was set up from everlasting. And as the Father ordained the Son, so the Father also sent the Son and gave him commandment. John 12:49: The Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak. So has the Father also given promises to the Son, and appointed him the kingdom, Luke 22:29.
And as it was the Father's will that the Son should take upon himself the work of redemption, so it was likewise the Son's own will to obey the Father and to carry out the work of the redemption of his elect, as we see, Psalm 40:9: I delight to do your will, O my God; yes, your law is within my heart. Of this mutual counsel Luther sings thus:
The Son was obedient to the Father,
He came to me on earth, etc.
The Son, having accepted this suretyship, had from eternity itself already a regard toward the elect; the Father had given them to him, John 17:6. He was their head, Ephesians 1:22. He knew them and had written them in the Book of Life, which is called the Lamb's, Revelation 13:8. And as soon as man had sinned, he was not only promised that he would one day come, in that first gospel: The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, Genesis 3:15 — but he immediately set about carrying out the suretyship in love. In this regard the Apostle says, Hebrews 13:8: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. He taught and revealed to his elect in every age before his coming the way of salvation, and even preached by Noah to the spirits that are in prison, 1 Peter 3:19. The Spirit of Christ signified beforehand to the prophets his sufferings and his glory, 1 Peter 1:11. He took their sins upon himself, to satisfy for them in his own time, and caused his people, through the sacrifices and through the persons who prefigured him, to see him and the sacrifice he was to make, and by virtue of that same sacrifice he interceded for them, Zechariah 1:12-13. He preserved them and ruled them as the Prince of the host, as Lord, Psalm 110:1. He, the Angel of the Presence of the LORD, kept them, took them up, and carried them, Isaiah 63:9.
But when now the appointed time, the fullness of time, had come, the Son of God took on the nature of those whom he was to redeem, and that from that same sinful race: the godly, the eminently virtuous Virgin Mary was chosen for this. An angel brings her the message, the Holy Spirit overshadows her and makes her fruitful by a miracle, to bear a Son; and when the days were fulfilled, she bore Immanuel, God and man in unity of Person, and so became our Goel, our nearest Kinsman and Redeemer, Job 1. And so God is manifest in the flesh, 1 Timothy 3:16. So he, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, made himself of no reputation, taking upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, Philippians 2:6-8.
Of this humiliation the prophet Isaiah, chapter 53:2-4, had spoken: He is as a tender plant grown up before him, and as a root out of dry ground: he has no form nor comeliness; when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and the most unworthy of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we did not esteem him. We esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
Engage yourself once, with holy meditation, in considering this Immanuel — who for a little while was made lower than the angels because of the suffering of death — in his beginning, his course, and his end in this world. He came as Surety, as Savior. By the union of those two natures he was made fit for this, and so he took upon himself all the sins of his elect; thus he knew himself, thus the Father knew him, thus the angels beheld him. Therefore the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all, Isaiah 53:6.
He was born in poverty and contempt; on the eighth day he suffered the painful rite of circumcision; he had to flee his native land; in the sweat of his face he presumably ate his bread, and labored with his own hands — presumably at carpentry, since he was called the Carpenter — coming to the more forceful exercise of his ministry. He was scornfully despised, contradicted, reviled; now they seek to throw him down from a cliff, now they take up stones to stone him, now the rulers make resolutions against him, and warn everyone against him as against the plague. In all this he is poor, and has nowhere to lay his head. He is led about through the streets of Jerusalem, paired with a murderer, and demanded by the people to be put to death; pitifully scourged, crowned with a crown of thorns, led out to Golgotha bearing his own cross, nailed to the cross, and hung as a curse between heaven and earth, in the midst of two murderers, executed on the place of execution as a criminal, in the sight of thousands of people; they give him vinegar mixed with gall to drink. In all these pains and disgraces, the wrath of God presses upon his soul, and seeing and feeling himself thus forsaken by all, he cries out: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? — and dies in anguish, hanging on that cross. Behold, thus the Savior became a curse; behold, thus the Lord of glory is crucified, the Prince of life put to death. What do you think — was he not made a little lower than the angels because of this suffering of death?
Even though a Christian knows all these things, he may not set them aside as matters he now knows and need no longer attend to; rather, he must occupy himself in the contemplation of this humiliation of Christ. The Bride in the Song of Songs was likewise occupied with this, saying, Song 1:13: My beloved is to me a bundle of myrrh, that lies all night between my breasts. The prophets searched what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them signified, when it testified beforehand of the sufferings that were to come upon Christ, 1 Peter 1:11. And though they did not yet have Christ in the flesh, they nevertheless believed and embraced him from afar, Hebrews 11:13. The angels themselves desire to look into these things, 1 Peter 1:12. Paul set such store by this that he said, 1 Corinthians 2:2: I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And Philippians 3:10: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death. Indeed, the Lord Jesus expressly commands this through Paul, 1 Corinthians 11:25: Do this... in remembrance of me.
Certainly, the more faith one had that these truths would present themselves clearly, and the more love one had for the Lord Jesus, the more one would occupy oneself with a quiet and strong meditation on the sufferings of Christ. One would value his humiliation, pain, and shame far more, and would in some measure feel them as one's own. His love would make the heart melt still more into quiet tears of love; the unfeeling heart, regarding sin, would here see more of its dreadfulness, and be more dismayed by it, and be stirred up to sin no more. One would see the righteousness of God still more, and embrace it with contentment; one would find still more comfort and peace in the sense and belief of the forgiveness of sins through such a perfect payment. Therefore apply yourself earnestly to this. And if you desire any guidance here, see the Spiritual Life of my late father, Theodorus à Brakel.
And now stay with me a little while, in considering the necessity of this humiliation; then the power of the same, and of the love shown in it.
1. Is your heart already convinced of the absolute necessity of the humiliation of Immanuel? Upon those words, What is man?, we convinced you of the absolute necessity that sin not remain unpunished, but be punished with temporal and eternal punishments. That now presenting itself irrefutably to the conscience, we have also convinced you that it is impossible for man to bear those punishments himself, but that he would necessarily have to lie under them to all eternity.
So no man can satisfy for himself, much less for another, and far less one for so many thousands of the elect; but one was needed who was able to atone for all sins — and this is Immanuel, God and man. Of him the Father says, Matthew 17:5: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Him he did not send to such a humiliation without necessity, but the righteousness of God required it. Paul shows this, Romans 3:25: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness — that is, to make manifest thereby that his righteousness does not allow sins to go unpunished, and that he forgives the sins of his elect without injury to his righteousness, but in accordance with it. This necessity also appears from the fact that in the sending of this Immanuel, and letting him suffer and die, there is an inexpressible love, of which we shall speak presently. If sins could have been forgiven without the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, then there could be no such singular love in sending him — indeed it would have been a greater love to spare his Son and simply remit men's sins; but since such love is indeed present, it is therefore impossible that anyone could be reconciled with God without his satisfaction.
But someone might raise this objection: God could well have kept man from sinning, and could have taken him up into heaven in such a holy state, and so it was merely a matter of God's good pleasure, and there was no absolute necessity that his Son should so humble himself. I answer: now that man has sinned, there is an absolute necessity in it. God could indeed have prevented the sinning, and had that been prevented, the humiliation would not have been necessary — that is true; but then the grace and mercy of God could not have been made known to angels and men. And therefore, so that he might make known this his grace and mercy to angels and men, and let himself be glorified by them in this, and raise them up to so great a salvation — therefore he shut up man under sin, and gave the sinner his Son. Let angels and men stand amazed at this manifold wisdom, goodness, grace, mercy, love, righteousness, almightiness, and truth of God, and let them cry out over it: O LORD our Lord, how excellent is your name!
2. It is necessary that, alongside this absolute necessity of the humiliation of Christ, we also be convinced of the power of his humiliation, holiness, suffering, and death.
By this he obtained complete deliverance from all punishment, complete remission of all guilt, complete reconciliation with God, and a complete right to eternal life for all his elect. Of this Scripture is full. First, thus says the Lord Jesus, Matthew 26:28: This is my blood, the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Titus 2:14: Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. So also Peter, 1 Peter 3:18: Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Second, this is shown in those passages which speak of lytron, ransom. Matthew 20:28: To give his life a ransom for many. In the giving of a ransom there is a release and setting free of the captive — antilytron, 1 Timothy 2:6: Who gave himself a ransom for all; apolytrosis, Ephesians 1:7: In whom we have redemption through his blood, that is, the forgiveness of sins. Third, the mind is also convinced of this truth in that Scripture says that Christ has obtained and purchased his own with his blood. Acts 20:28: To feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. Revelation 5:6: You were slain, and have redeemed us to God with your blood. Fourth, attend carefully to those passages which say that through the suffering of Christ, reconciliation and peace with God are brought about, as Romans 5:10: For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; and Colossians 1:20: And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him — I say — to reconcile all things to himself.
It is not enough that we merely echo this truth to one another, presupposing it and letting it lie there, because no great dispute or controversy over it presents itself with any party — rather, one must have one's mind convinced with the force of this truth, so that one may dare to build upon it. Let this then be settled: that it became him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings, Hebrews 2:10. Let this be clear to you: that in Christ there is an overflowing fullness to save his own, John 1:16: Of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. Colossians 1:19: It has pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell — wherefore he is also able perfectly to save those who come to God by him, Hebrews 7:25.
3. How can we take leave of this humiliation of Jesus Christ without also expressly considering the ineffable love of God in Christ in this humiliation, marveling at it, and being inflamed with wondering love! Come then, believing soul, and consider from what ground and heart it is that God gives you his Son as a Surety, and that the Son bears your punishment in your place. Did God, did Christ, have no purpose? Was there nothing that moved them to do so great a thing — a thing on which a thousand and a thousand times more hung than on the creating of heaven and earth? If so, what was it then? His own advantage? No: the Lord is from eternity all-sufficient in himself; none of man's goodness reaches him at all. Was it then some necessity? No, the Lord was free, and not bound to the sinful creature. Was it then goodness in man, or some pitiable misery, that first set him in motion? No, it took no beginning from the creature. What was it then? Sheer love, love alone.
God is love, 1 John 4:8. From this love flows everything he does for his children. If he chastens them, it is love: Revelation 3:19, As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. If he gives to them, it is love: Isaiah 63:9, In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. If he draws them to himself, it is love: Jeremiah 31:3, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you. But above all, love shows itself in the sending of his Son. The Son himself cries out over this with wonder, John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Here also John extols the Father, saying, 1 John 4:9: In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
And as the Father sent his Son out of love, so the Son out of sheer love accepted the suretyship and faithfully carried it out, as we see, Ephesians 5:2: Even as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us; verse 25: Even as Christ has loved the church, and has given himself for it. Galatians 2:20: Who has loved me, and given himself for me.
Let it grieve you, O children of God, that you think so little on this love of God and of Christ, that you can see so little of this love even when you do think on it, and that this love so little moves you to wonder, joy, and love in return. The less we loved the earth, and the more we held ourselves in fellowship with God, the more we would surely become aware of this love. God grant you a greater sight, faith, and sense of this his love, which is truly heaven in the soul. Come then, apply your heart to this, and weigh these four things, whether you might become aware of love in them.
I. The Person who humbles himself: this is Immanuel, the true God, 1 John 5:20; the Lord of glory, 1 Corinthians 2:8; who had glory with the Father before the world was, John 17:5; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, Philippians 2:6; the Creator and Sustainer of heaven and earth — this one, this one empties himself. And that out of love. Is he not your Bridegroom, the one who loves you, and is he not the beloved of your soul? Well, he comes out of love to redeem you.
2. Consider the things he took upon himself and faithfully accomplished: he emptied himself, taking upon him the form of a servant, Philippians 2:7. He took your sins upon himself, and so he who knew no sin was made sin for us, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and bore our sins in his own body, 1 Peter 2:24. He became a curse, Galatians 3:13; a reproach of men, and despised of the people, Psalm 22:6; forsaken by God, Psalm 22:1. He bore the wrath of God, was hung upon the cross, and died a cruel and shameful death. In sum, all that is shameful, all that is painful, he — who was true God and holy man — suffered out of love in your place; in your place, I say, believing souls. Consider this, see the painfulness, behold the love; and truly, if this love does not strike you as wonderful, you have never yet seen far enough into it. Ah, beloved, linger here a while, until you become aware of love.
3. Consider the persons for whom the Lord Jesus made himself Surety. They were his elect — but in themselves damnable wretches, whom one would recoil from in horror and would hasten to crush. For these, these, the Lord Jesus suffered all that, and there you are, believing reader, one of them, who reads this or hears it read. This, this is love. John 15:13: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. But see, here is greater love, for Christ died for the worthless and for the enemies of God, Romans 5:8: But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; verse 10: For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. These — among whom, believing reader, you are counted — the Lord Jesus truly, heartily loves with an everlasting love, and therefore he took their sins upon himself, and bore their sorrows; and he would rather have suffered a thousand times over what he suffered, than have endured that his beloved should not be fully rescued and brought to complete salvation. How willing love made him, how light love made for him that incomprehensibly heavy suffering! If you can see no love in this, you can see it nowhere.
4. Weigh the small number of people for whom he became Surety, against that great multitude whom he does not love. Consider then: why me? Me, more than another? I, who am the vilest, the worst, the most foolish, the most insufferable of all — why does the Lord love me, me, one out of so many thousands? But why am I precisely among that few? I, among the elect? Jesus my Surety? Jesus loves me, loves me with an everlasting love? And while millions go to hell, do I, among the beloved, go to heaven? This is too great, this is too high for me; here I must come to a stop and end, until a perfected state makes me able to grasp more, to marvel more, and to love in return more. Oh, that we knew and believed the love of Christ! And that we loved him heartily! That his love would constrain us!
Chapter 7
Of Christ's Exaltation.
"And You have crowned him with glory and honor."
Here is shown: 1. The truth of his exaltation in resurrection and ascension. 2. What power the consideration of these two stages ought to have upon our soul, unto sanctification and joy, both with respect to Christ and with respect to his own. 3. That one must consider Christ in his glory: a. As God; b. As Mediator; c. Motives for considering Christ in his glory: a. It is the most glorious object for the understanding; b. It is the most delightful sight; c. It sanctifies the soul in a special way, and that in six ways.
Having seen Jesus in his humiliation made a little lower than the angels, let us now climb somewhat higher, and see him also in his glory.
Christ having died and been buried, it was not possible that he should be held by death; and therefore, as he had power to lay down his life, so he also had power to take it up again, and thus he also rose again from the dead. It is our glory, our boast, that our Christ was crucified — we are glad to know it, we proclaim it everywhere; but we add to it that he rose from the dead most triumphantly. This had been prophesied of him, Psalm 16: You will not leave my soul in hell; you will not allow your Holy One to see corruption. So it also came to pass: on the third day after his death, his divine nature reunited his soul with that same body, and made it alive, and he rose from the dead in a most glorious manner. An angel descends with heavenly splendor, the earth trembles, the guards are terrified, and angels proclaim it, saying: He is not here, he is risen, as he said.
The Apostles bore witness with great power to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, Acts 4:33. Let your thoughts rest a while on this matter, until you become aware of the power of his resurrection, as Paul speaks, Philippians 3:10 — namely, that he rose again for our justification, Romans 4:25 — so that a believer may now ask God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Is my sin not paid for? Is your justice not satisfied? Are you not now reconciled with me, seeing that my Surety has overcome it all, and has risen from the dead as a proof of it?
Consider the resurrection in this way, until your soul, united with Christ through faith, is raised up with him, Colossians 3:1, and made alive, Ephesians 2:5, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead, so you too walk in newness of life, Romans 6:4. And see also, in his resurrection, your own blessed resurrection through faith, for your comfort and joy, Romans 8:11. And when the Lord Christ, for forty days, had shown himself alive to his disciples, and had spoken with them of the things concerning the kingdom of God, he was taken up while his disciples watched: When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men, Ephesians 4:8. In a very lofty style Paul speaks of this, Hebrews 1:3: Who, being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Let faith represent these past things to you; see and hear the joy of the inhabitants of heaven, whose shout is spoken of in the type, Psalm 47:6: God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. How did the glorious angels rejoice? They who shouted for joy when the LORD laid the foundations of the earth; they who, with a multitude of the heavenly host, joyfully praised the LORD when the Messiah was born, glorifying and praising God, saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
What an untold multitude was arrayed from heaven to earth! What a throng surrounded him! How did they bow themselves down before that King of glory, riding in triumph, and ascribe to him honor and glory! How did the souls of the perfected righteous rejoice, and welcome their Head and Bridegroom with that eternal Hallelujah! Turn your eye at once upon that King of glory. Truly, as he was man, and in his human nature had tasted all bitterness, anguish, and shame, so he also truly rejoiced with great gladness over that glory. And how blessed must his heart have been over the glory of God his Father, which especially displayed itself in the welcoming of the Messiah, who had now accomplished everything! How rejoiced must he have been over that great work of the redemption of his brethren, and that he now returned to the Father who had sent him, to prepare a place for them! And with what pleasure did God his Father receive him! See this High Priest now entering into the Holy of Holies; let your heart rejoice, sing of him responsively from Psalm 24:7-8: Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
Though it is not granted to us, in that extraordinary way as to Stephen, to see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God, Acts 7:56, and though we may not, like Paul, enter the third heaven, in that manner unknown even to himself, 2 Corinthians 12 — yet we may and must, through faith, see Jesus crowned with glory and honor, Hebrews 2:6. Come then, let faith be to you the evidence of things not seen, and occupy yourself much, with quiet meditation, in the contemplation of Jesus' glory. It is not enough merely to attend to the truths set forth in Scripture and remain hanging on the letter. It is not enough merely to attend to oneself, to surrender oneself to God, to mortify sin, to deny oneself, to seek quietness and peace of conscience, and so on — these things are good and necessary, but it is not enough; it is not enough merely to think on the humiliation of Christ, and there to see and seek satisfaction. To remain in these and similar things alone is the cause of much deadness, unbelief, and instability, and it hinders spiritual growth and the glorifying of Jesus rightly and to a higher degree.
Therefore be in earnest; lift up your heart to add this to what has been said, namely, to live steadfastly in the contemplation of Christ's glory. This will be the occupation in heaven, according to the prayer of Jesus Christ, John 17:24: Father, I will that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me. To this end Jesus reveals himself here on earth also to his own, according to his promise, John 14:21: He who loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Come then, see Jesus crowned with honor and glory.
1. As God. Jesus our Mediator is not only a glorious and excellent man, but he is himself God, blessed above all forever, Romans 9:5; the true God and eternal life, 1 John 5:20; the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person, Hebrews 1:3; in the form of God, equal with God, Philippians 2:6. Here an infinity of contemplation opens itself, as the soul is admitted to see Jesus as God, as the eternal God, and to behold his perfections one by one — his all-sufficiency, holiness, glory, almightiness, sovereignty, love, mercy, and so forth — and in each of them to become aware of an infinity which their weak understanding cannot contain, and that not merely with a speculative knowledge by hearsay, but with an experiential sight, now already tasting and savoring the power and sweetness of these inconceivable perfections. To this David invites the children of God, Psalm 34:9. When one thus beholds his glory — a glory as of the only begotten of the Father, as John speaks, chapter 1:14 — then the soul loses itself, then it is fit, falling down, to give him honor and glory.
2. Consider Jesus crowned with honor and glory as Mediator, in the glory he received. In this respect God has also highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, Philippians 2:9-11. And he has become so much better than the angels, as he has obtained by inheritance a more excellent name than they, Hebrews 1:4, for he has received honor and glory from God the Father, 2 Peter 1. Of this Peter, James, and John saw a small ray upon Tabor, which Matthew relates thus, chapter 17:2-5: And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as the light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him. While he yet spoke, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him.
This was but a small ray; but now that the Lord Jesus has overcome all things, he is now seated with his Father on his throne, Revelation 3:21. There Jesus is now as Conqueror; there he has the honor of being the Savior of all the elect, of being the one through whom the manifold wisdom, grace, righteousness, and truth of the LORD, and so forth, is made known to angels and men. Now all power in heaven and on earth has been given to him, Matthew 28:18. Now the heathen have been given him for his inheritance, and the ends of the earth for his possession, Psalm 2:8. Now he reigns from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, Psalm 72:8. Now he must reign as King until he has put all enemies under his feet, 1 Corinthians 15:25. Now he is the great High Priest at the throne of grace, Hebrews 4:14-16. Now, as that one great Prophet, he has given some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, Ephesians 4:11. Consider these things in silence, and see how all the angels of God worship him, Hebrews 1:6; how the whole host of heaven bows down before him, saying: To him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be thanksgiving, and honor, and glory, and power, forever and ever, Revelation 5:13. See how all believers throughout the whole world look to him alone, and converge together at this one center, uniting their sights, expecting all salvation from his hand, trusting under his wings, and willingly bowing themselves before him — and so are an honor to Christ. See how devils and all the ungodly are in his hand, to be commanded by him and used as and however it pleases him. Come then, grant him with full contentment that honor; rejoice over it with your whole heart, exult, and let your heart leap for joy. Sing psalms to God, sing psalms; sing psalms to our King, sing psalms. For God is King of all the earth; sing psalms with understanding. God reigns over the nations; God sits on the throne of his holiness. The nobles of the peoples are gathered to the people of the God of Abraham; for the shields of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted. Psalm 47:10.
Come then, children of God, accustom yourselves to see Jesus crowned with honor and glory, for:
1. Your understanding cannot be empty of thinking; now it can have no more glorious object than this glorified Jesus. Whatever is in the world is, after all, too coarse, too vile, for the noble soul to occupy itself with; and why should you let your eyes fly after that which is not — after that which is but a shadow, but a perishable, but a soul-wounding, soul-oppressing, soul-corrupting vanity, when God is not seen in it? The more excellent an object the soul has, the more it delights itself. The glorified Jesus is beyond the reach of a child of this world; therefore they wander off to earthly objects, seeing no others. But you, my believer, who know Jesus, who love him, where else shall the eye of your understanding look, but upon the glorified Jesus? And having him in view, everything else will of itself lose all its luster, a thousand times more than there can be difference between earthly things. You ought to be ashamed that you so often turn your eyes away from Jesus. That hinders the soul's elevation, breeds darkness and confusion in it, and makes it quietly sink down to earthly things.
2. Nor can anything be more delightful for a child of God. God indeed wills that his children be joyful; he often stirs them up to it; he promises to meet the cheerful. Now nowhere can they rejoice more inwardly and more constantly than in Jesus' glory. Come then, let your meditation on him be sweet. How sweet is the story of God's dealing with Moses, Exodus 33. Moses pleads for the presence of the LORD among his people; God stirs up his longing, saying: Shall my presence go with you, to give you rest? Moses said he never wished to depart otherwise, so the LORD promises it to him, saying: This thing also that you have spoken I will do, for you have found grace in my sight, and I know you by name. Whereupon Moses, taking more boldness, brings out the desire that lay in his soul, saying: Show me your glory. The LORD was too good to refuse him altogether, and shows him that he was too weak to bear the splendor of his glory, but that he would nevertheless make his goodness pass before his face, and would proclaim his name before him — as indeed came to pass. Picture this to yourself, and judge whether there could be anything more desirable and delightful for you than just this: that the Lord Jesus should take you by the hand, and lead you into the inner chambers, and show you all those heavenly mysteries, and reveal himself to you in all his divine perfections, and in all that honor and glory which he, as Mediator, possesses — filled, in heaven, with holy delight, so that it desires no other delight, nor thinks of any other delight, and therefore all the lust of the eyes and of the flesh has no hold upon it.
2. Because its soul is so full of stillness, so full of joy, it wishes never to lose that sight; and because it knows that sin would draw a cloud before it, it is very careful to guard itself against sin. And because it knows that the promise of seeing God is to the pure in heart, Matthew 5:8, and that the promise that Jesus will manifest himself is to him who keeps and loves his commandments, John 14:21, it is very desirous of this, and very zealous for sanctification. In order to become holy it desires to see Jesus in glory, and in order not to lose Jesus it strives after holiness.
3. Seeing Jesus crowned with honor and glory, it sees in him that dignity worthy of service and obedience, by which sight the soul, without much reasoning, indeed without deliberation and thinking it over, finds itself bound, and is moved with a willingness to be all that it is for him, and to do all that it can according to his will.
4. The soul then sees, among all the perfections of Jesus, his holiness excelling, both as God and as Mediator, both in his nature and in his deeds — not as holiness was made known on Horeb, with an impossibility of attaining it and with a fearful curse against transgressors, but in its own nature and its lovely beauty, which at once sets in motion all the affections of a lover.
5. The soul, beholding Jesus in glory, also becomes aware at once of the eternal, perfect love of Jesus toward it, and of the loveliness of Jesus himself. By this its own love is kindled, as John shows, 1 John 4:19. Now love is of such a nature that it applies everything it can toward the pleasure of the beloved, and strives to be conformed to the beloved. See, thus a beholder of Jesus' glory becomes burning in love, and love is the soul of holiness.
6. Yet all this would have no place in so wicked and hardened a subject as man is, unless power went out from Jesus and the Spirit of Christ flowed into the soul, through that special, close union into which the Lord brings the soul that beholds him in glory — which Spirit, then working the more abundantly in it, draws that soul especially away from all earthly things and from itself, and makes it very desirous to be pleasing to the Lord.
All this surely presents itself to your soul, O godly one, while you hear or read this. Does it not? Well then, turn your eyes away, that they no longer look upon vanity. Pray for eye-salve, that you may see, and especially for the fulfillment of that promise of the Lord Jesus made to you. Turn yourself toward him, wait there, look out for him, accustom yourself so to him — whether the LORD lifts up the light of his countenance upon you, or hides his face from you — always giving heed to the Word, and occupying yourself with it at all times through faith.
Chapter 8
Of the Covenant of Grace.
In the treatment of which, after the misconceptions of some are pointed out, is shown: 1. The force of the word in the Hebrew, Greek, and Dutch languages. 2. That God deals with man, and man with God, by way of covenant. 3. The Causes, or Covenant-Makers. 4. The Conditions of this Covenant. 5. The Surety. 6. The Form, or the proper essence. 7. The End. 8. The Properties. 9. The Seals. 10. The Description drawn up from the matters treated.
Thus we have set Christ before you, both in his humiliation and his exaltation, and have led believing souls to consider him in both states. Now we wish to extend ourselves somewhat further, to those who have as yet no part in Jesus and live in nature, as well as to those who indeed have grace, yet, through ignorance of it, suppose that Christ is not yet theirs, or live continually wavering between hope and fear — in case it might be a means whereby the Lord would bring someone to himself, and whereby those already brought to him might obtain greater steadfastness in their hearts and walk. To this end we shall set forth the following matters:
1. The truth and the true essence of the Covenant of Grace between God and man, in and through the Mediator and Surety Jesus Christ.
2. The presentation, or offer, of that covenant and of that Surety through the gospel.
3. The entering into that covenant, and the acceptance of the Surety, through faith.
4. The nature, the state of soul, and the deeds of true and of merely apparent believers, and their dealings with God.
In this chapter we shall speak of the first: namely, of the truth and the true essence of the Covenant of Grace, between God and man, in and through the Mediator and Surety Jesus Christ.
This Psalm shows us more than once that there is such a Covenant of Grace, as when it speaks of the LORD our Lord; then of God's remembrance of man; then of the Mediator in his humiliation and exaltation, and of his members, and so forth. We therefore undertake to give a brief and clear opening of this covenant.
Some, when they pray for certain temporal or eternal, bodily or spiritual matters, leave a separation and estrangement between God and themselves, and seek only the thing itself, as a poor man seeks a gift from a rich man, between whom there arises neither acquaintance nor friendship, even though the rich man gives something. A close union with God as reconciled, as friends, as Father and child, Bridegroom and Bride — indeed as one spirit — they do not so much seek; that is too high for them, that is, they think, beyond their reach. Indeed, they would well shrink from thinking of such great goods with respect to themselves, or from asking them of God, and then expecting the desired thing from God as from such a God united to them. That, they think, is far too high and too great for them; yet it is an error. That there is a humbling of oneself, to say with the prodigal son, I am not worthy to be called your son — that is fitting; but through that self-abasement to leave the estrangement between the two standing, is shameful for man and not to the honor of God. It is certain that such a union, and such a gift arising from that union, are too great for a sinner to seek or to receive of himself; but it is not too great for the Infinitely Good God to give it. And though God indeed gives earthly goods to the ungodly and to natural men in such estrangement, yet he never gives spiritual and eternal goods otherwise than with such a united, reconciled, and fatherly heart.
I do not know how anyone who does not regard himself as a child of God — whether habitually or actually — can or dares pray for anything, unless he first seeks that reconciliation and friendship. Surely it would immediately, upon turning to God, strike against the heart: what shall God give me, so long as I am not united and reconciled with him? The prayers that come from such a suppliant, who seeks the union, and prays out of a reconciled state of soul, and expects things from a reconciled God, are the most spiritual, the most powerful, and the most acceptable.
Others attribute too much to the act of their faith, since they hold their state firm or let it fall according as that act is lively or sluggish. If their faith is strong and lively, and they taste the sweetness of spiritual goods, then they are champions; then they say with David, Psalm 30:7-8: I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved. LORD, by your favor you have made my mountain to stand strong. But when that strength, liveliness, clarity, and sweetness departs, and it grows dark, then they sink into faintness; then it is: You hid your face, and I was troubled. This instability arises from this, that one makes the act of faith — which is indeed absolutely necessary and an infallible sign of grace — and not the truth of God in the Covenant of Grace alone and purely, the ground of one's steadfastness.
Both these misconceptions now related have their origin in ignorance of the Covenant of Grace, and in neglect of working by means of it. He who wishes to make firm steps, who wishes quickly to rise again after a fall, and to have free access to the Throne of grace, and who wishes courageously to go through the darkness, who with a mind free and released from earthly things wishes to go forward from strength to strength — he must deal with God by way of a covenant. It is indeed true that the matter itself is included in believing in Christ, so that he who believes in God through Christ thereby actually enters into the covenant; but to grasp this as dealing with God by way of covenant-making gives special steadfastness and advantage. To this end we shall now set forth the nature of this covenant, in the order given above.
The Word "Covenant."
I. The name itself already gives a small explanation of the matter. In the Old Testament, in the Hebrew tongue, the covenant is called Berith. One is not certain from what word it derives. If one derives it from "to create, to make, to ordain," it expresses the establishing, the ordaining of persons, conditions, and manner of carrying out this covenant, which in everything is well ordained and kept, 2 Samuel 23:5. If one derives it from "to cleave, to cut," it signifies the firmness and inviolability of it, and points to the cutting in two of animals, between whose pieces one passed in making the covenant, Jeremiah 34:18 — to signify that the covenant-breaker acknowledged himself worthy thus to be cut in pieces. If one derives it from "to choose," it points to the choosing of the persons with whom, and of the conditions on which, one wishes to make a covenant. If one takes note of it as derived from "to eat," it expresses the familiar and trusted friendship that comes through the making of a covenant between covenant partners, as we see in Jacob, who prepared a meal when he had made a covenant with Laban, Genesis 31. See also 1 Corinthians 10:18.
Now in the New Testament, in the Greek tongue, the covenant is called diatheke, in which there is no particular emphasis, except that it is notable that the word diatheke means, without distinction, both Covenant and Testament. It is found thirty-three times in the New Testament; our translators render it fourteen times as Testament, and nineteen times as Covenant. And this fits this Covenant of Grace remarkably well. For it is such a covenant that it includes something of a testament in itself, and such a testament that it has something of a covenant in itself. It is a covenantal testament, and a testamentary covenant.
Covenant, in our Dutch tongue, is as much as "bound together," for in a covenant parties bind themselves, both by promises and also by oaths, so that they who before were free are now bound to fulfill what is promised in the covenant. The word comes from "to bind," whereby things which of themselves do not adhere to one another are, by a bond, tied to one another, so that they now form a bundle. So it happens also in a covenant: parties who before were not one, whether they lived in enmity, or were otherwise strangers to one another, are by a covenant made close and one. Even the simplest person knows this to be true of natural covenants; apply this now to this Covenant of Grace, and you see that by this covenant God has bound himself to his own truth, to give his covenant partners those promises, and that God and man are made one and united. Thus Holy Scripture speaks, 1 Corinthians 6:17: He who holds fast to the Lord is one spirit with him. John 17:21: That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us. A creature, a sinner, one with God in Christ — who shall fathom that depth, and who shall fathom that great blessedness? Who would not willingly enter into such a covenant with God?
That There Is a Covenant-Dealing.
II. If anyone is to deal with God by way of covenant, and is to draw the true profit from the covenant established, he must first be very clearly convinced in his mind that God establishes a covenant with man, and that God, by establishing this covenant, leads man to salvation, and that man may deal with God by way of covenant.
To persuade your soul of this, consider attentively a few passages of Holy Scripture in which this matter is clearly set forth. You will meet them often in reading Scripture. We set before you these few for your consideration:
Genesis 15: Abraham was grieved that he went childless, though he had the promise of the blessed and blessing seed, Christ. God again promises him that seed; Abraham believed it, but wished for an assurance. Whereupon God, in a most solemn manner, makes a covenant with Abraham, verse 18. Not with Abraham alone, but God makes his covenant also with his seed, Genesis 17:7: And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your seed after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your seed after you. Here now no doubt can remain; it must present itself clearly to the mind, that God establishes a covenant with man. If this is so on God's side, it is so likewise on man's side, for one party alone can indeed make a testament — promise and give something — but to make a covenant necessarily requires the consent of both sides.
See Jeremiah 31:31-33: Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. This concerns especially the days of the New Testament, and thus also this our own time, as may be seen, Hebrews 8:8. The words of Ezekiel 20:37 carry their own particular emphasis: I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. This is also set forth very forcefully and comfortingly, Jeremiah 32:38-40: Yes, they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them and of their children after them; and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, etc. So we have now surely persuaded your souls that the LORD makes a covenant with man.
Let us now also consider such passages as show that man, on his side, enters into that covenant with God, and thus makes a covenant with God. See Nehemiah 9:38: And because of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it. So also 2 Chronicles 15:12: And they entered into a covenant, that they would seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul. See also Isaiah 44:5: One shall say, I am the LORD's; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the LORD, and surname himself by the name of Israel.
In the New Testament, too, this covenant is often spoken of, as among others, Luke 1:72: To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant. Ephesians 2:12-13: Therefore remember that at that time you were without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, etc. Hebrews 7:22: By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better covenant. Hebrews 8:6: As he is also the Mediator of a better covenant. In all of this it is so clear to see that God deals with man, and man in turn with God, by way of covenant, that it can leave no doubt in the mind. Therefore this doctrine has always been taught in the Church of God. And when, through the darkness of the papacy, this doctrine remained obscured and unpracticed, the first Reformers, the first Reformed Churches, impressed this doctrine most earnestly, and have left us particular uses of this doctrine, as they speak of it so powerfully in the Forms of Baptism, of the Lord's Supper, and of Marriage. So that no one is to reject or embrace this doctrine, and the practice of it, as a novel invention, as now first discovered — whether by himself or by another — to boast of, but rather is to exercise it as an ordinary dealing between God and the soul.
The Covenant-Makers.
III. Understanding the name, then, and being assured of the truth of the matter, we shall now, with quiet reflection, proceed to consider the Causes, or Covenant-Makers. These are wondrously unequal in every respect: never have such conflicting parties been reconciled, never have such unequal ones been united.
Let us consider each in particular. It is not all the same to men with whom they make a covenant of peace and war, with whom they establish a covenant of partnership, with whom they enter into a covenant of marriage: the persons involved matter a great deal; accordingly the covenant is glorious and profitable. Now this covenant is the most wondrous, the most glorious, the most useful of all, since it is God who establishes this covenant with man.
I say, God is, on the one side, the Maker of this covenant.
1. God is, and must in this regard be considered, as All-sufficient. God is in himself all-sufficient; he has no need to be served by human hands, as though he needed anything, Acts 17:25: Neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed anything. Psalm 16:2: My goodness extends not to you. And as he is all-sufficient in himself, so he is also for man — yes, for a sinner — able so to satisfy him in fellowship with himself, with himself alone, that he desires nothing more and nothing else; indeed, that he sees he can hold but a single drop of that infinity of all-sufficiency. Psalm 73:25: Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides you. Verse 28: It is good for me to draw near to God. Psalm 16:11: In your presence is fullness of joy. Psalm 17:15: I shall be satisfied with your likeness. Song 5:1: Be drunk, O beloved! Psalm 36:8: They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house. Jeremiah 31:25: I have satiated the weary soul. This One, all-sufficient in every respect, establishes a covenant with man, who lacks in everything. How blessed is he who stands in a covenant with this God! Who shall, who can, refuse to enter into a covenant with him? Who would not become eager and desirous to do this at once?
2. Besides this, God presents himself to us, in making this covenant, as Good. He who establishes this covenant is not only all-sufficient, but he also wills to be so to his covenant partner, to the sinner. God is truly good. Nahum 1:7: The LORD is good. Exodus 34:6: LORD, LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. Psalm 119:68: You are good, and do good. Psalm 136:1: Praise the LORD, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. From this goodness proceeds the doing of good, and especially also the establishing of this covenant. Luke 1:78: Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring from on high has visited us. Titus 3:4: But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, he saved us, etc. It can grieve none but a lover of God that so many always go about with a wrong impression of God. Many always regard the good God as hard, cruel, unmerciful, unpitying, inexorable, having no regard for the small and the helpless, and so on. With such a heart they come to prayer, and have little or no hope of being heard; with such a heart they go about the whole day when they have sinned, as if there were now no grace to be had — thereby they dishonor God, and ruin themselves. Let those who run from God, and neither desire nor seek him, tremble before him as before an avenger; but you, for whom it is a matter of the LORD, regard him indeed as good. Lamentations 3:25: The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. Regard him so, and come, fearing, to the LORD, and to his goodness. Hosea 3:5.
With such a good God does man have to do in the making of this covenant. Who would not gain both desire and boldness thereby, to enter into a covenant with the LORD.
3. Further, God presents himself, in the establishing of this covenant, as an Almighty God, who is not only willing but also able to impart his all-sufficiency to the creature. When the LORD wished expressly to make the covenant with Abraham, the LORD said to him, I am God Almighty, Genesis 17:1. He who is mighty has done great things for me, sang Mary, Luke 1:49 — the Almighty. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, Ephesians 3:20.
He then who is in a covenant with this God — how safe is he! How may he rest in him! How surely may he expect the promises!
4. Further, in the establishing of this covenant God presents himself to us as a Faithful God, who will surely cause his covenant partners to enjoy the promised goods. Peter calls him the faithful Creator, 1 Peter 4:19. The prophet: Who keeps faith forever; and Psalm 121:3, 7: He will not allow your foot to be moved; your keeper will not slumber. Behold, the keeper of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade upon your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; he shall preserve your soul. Psalm 119:75: I know that you have afflicted me in faithfulness. See there, it is all faithfulness, whatever God does to his children. That faithful God will then surely be faithful in establishing this covenant. He remains faithful, 2 Timothy 2:13; and Psalm 89:33-34: I will not fail in my faithfulness. I will not profane my covenant, nor alter that which has gone out of my lips. So one may enter this covenant without suspicion, and rest in it, being in that covenant, without fear.
5. Further, God presents himself to us, in the establishing of this covenant, as True and Unchangeable; therefore he lets himself be called JEHOVAH — I will be, I will be who I will be, Exodus 3. I the LORD do not change; therefore you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed, says the LORD, Malachi 3:6. 1 Samuel 15:29: Also he who is the Strength of Israel will not lie, nor repent, for he is not a man, that he should repent. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance, Romans 11:29. So a covenant partner may as surely expect the promises as if he already possessed them, and may rejoice beforehand in them, as Abraham did, of whose state it is said, Romans 4:20-21: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
6. Lastly, in this covenant God presents himself to us as Holy and Righteous, who will by no means clear the guilty, Exodus 34:7. When Joshua brought the people into a covenant with God, he said, Joshua 24:19: You cannot serve the LORD, for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. Therefore the LORD deals through a Mediator in the Covenant of Grace, by whom he draws near to his covenant partners and blesses them, and by whom they in turn draw near to God. Hence this covenant remains unshakable, since the Surety has taken away everything that could hinder, and God — having now received satisfaction from the Surety — will not demand the debt a second time from the covenant partners. So that the righteousness of God is here not for terror, but for the great comfort of the covenant partners.
This is the establisher of this covenant on the one side: indeed, he alone is the one who promises and who does everything; man's part is only to bring his consent and will to it, without which no covenant can be made. Yet this very willing God also works, Philippians 2:13. Dwell a while now on these properties of God set forth with respect to this covenant, until your soul becomes aware of their power, and calls those most blessed who stand with such a God in a covenant, and you yourself are moved to consider it not a matter for deliberation whether to enter into this covenant with that God, but to do it with all readiness — accounting those who neglect it unbearable fools.
Now we must also see who it is that comes, on the other side, to the making of this covenant. These are the elect children of God. These are, in their nature, abominable, because of their sinfulness, damnability, impotence, loathsomeness, and unbearableness, as we have shown in Chapter 4. Compare now these two together: could one indeed believe that between two parties so unequal, ever, ever a covenant — and such a covenant — should come to be, unless God himself revealed it to us? And now that such a covenant does come between them, what a thing worthy of wonder and joy is that! Let angels, let heaven and earth, let mankind stand amazed that God the LORD takes up such an outcast, wicked, and useless creature into a covenant — indeed into so close a covenant of friendship — and by that divine way leads it to salvation.
The Conditions of the Covenant.
IV. The fourth thing that must be attentively considered in this covenant is the substance, the conditions, the promises, the terms on which this covenant proceeds. First we must see what articles are offered and promised on God's side, and then what conditions man brings. Take note, reader, whoever you are; attend carefully to the articles of this covenant, whether it might stir your delight, your wonder, your joy. Is it not the covenant of God? Is that not worthy of our attention? The promised blessings are so many that their number exceeds our grasp, and in each one is an infinite blessedness. We shall set forth only some principal matters in brief words, bringing their number to fourteen. The first seven are the evils from which the LORD promises to deliver his covenant partners. The second seven comprise the blessings which the LORD promises to grant them. God grant that we may, with an understanding and believing heart, discern these as the promised goods of this covenant. Proceed then, and let it not weary you to read the conditions of the covenant.
God wills to establish a covenant with man under offers and promises, that he will deliver and free his covenant partners from everything that can make them wretched, and that could diminish their blessedness — everything that weighs on them, or could weigh on them, without exception.
1. God offers, as a condition of the covenant, that he will deliver the covenant partner from sin. See this, Jeremiah 31:33-34: This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD... I will forgive their iniquity. Such forgiveness God promises, that he retains not a single sin, but forgives them all — small, great, known, unknown, gross, of weakness, of surprise, long-clinging, even the sinfulness of nature — none, none excepted. Jeremiah 33:8: And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me. Such forgiveness God promises, that he forgets them forever, and never again brings them up, Jeremiah 31:34: I will remember their sin no more. Isaiah 43:25: I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 44:22: I have blotted out your transgressions like a thick cloud, and your sins like a cloud. So God promises to forgive sins in such a way that he no longer regards the sinner as a sinner, but as if he had not sinned against him at all — indeed, as if he had fully satisfied for all his sins and fulfilled all righteousness. Colossians 2:10: You are complete in him.
He who knows what it is to be sinful, and what it means to say "sin," will in some measure grasp what a glorious promise this condition is.
2. God offers and promises to the covenant partner the removal of his wrath. Every man lies under wrath, Ephesians 2:3: We were by nature children of wrath. This is unbearable: Psalm 76:7: Who may stand in your sight, once you are angry? But from this the covenant partners are wholly delivered, 1 Thessalonians 1:10: Who delivers us from the wrath to come.
3. In this covenant God delivers the covenant partners from the curse. This lies upon every man, Deuteronomy 27:26: Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law. But from this the covenant partners are freed, Galatians 3:13: Christ has redeemed us from the curse, being made a curse for us...
4. God also promises deliverance from all bodily adversities, and from death, insofar as it would harm the covenant partners and not tend to their advantage. Hosea 13:14: I will ransom them from the power of death.
5. God wills to make a covenant on the condition that he will deliver the covenant partners from the power of the devil. Every man, in his natural state, is taken captive by the devil at his will, 2 Timothy 2:26. By virtue of this covenant God delivers his own, and sends teachers to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, Acts 26:18.
6. God offers in this covenant, and promises, freedom from the dominion of sin: Romans 6:14: Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace.
7. God promises in this covenant deliverance and freedom from eternal condemnation, Romans 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
What do you think, reader, of these conditions? To be freed, and to remain forever freed, from all evils, so that no evil and no creature will ever be able to harm you, or diminish your happiness — is such a covenant one to refuse?
It was not enough for the LORD to draw up in his covenant such conditions by which the covenant partners would be freed from all evil; but he also sets forth other conditions, by which he promises all the blessings that can tend to the happiness of his covenant partners.
1. God offers himself to be the God of the sinner, Genesis 17:7: I will establish my covenant... to be a God to you. Jeremiah 31:33-34: This is my covenant... I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
In this lies all blessedness, yet no one knows what it is except he who enjoys it: it is not to receive some gift from God, but to have God himself for one's portion. Jeremiah 10:16: The portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the former of all things. In this the psalmist rejoiced, Lamentations 3:24: The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him. In this Asaph rested, Psalm 73:25-26: Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the rock of my heart, and my portion forever. Who shall utter that great blessedness! It is to be overshadowed with God's favorable presence; it is to be surrounded with his helping and warming almightiness; it is to rest in his infallible faithfulness; it is to rejoice in his eternal blessedness, majesty, glory; it is to be shone upon by his love; it is to be satisfied with his all-sufficiency; it is to lose oneself in his infinity and incomprehensibility; it is that contented and loving prostration before him, submission under him, adoration of him. It is, in the sight and sense of his perfections, with heart and tongue and deeds, to give him honor and glory, because he is worthy of it. It is to fear him, to serve him, and to be united in everything with his will, because he is God. It is what I cannot utter, and what you cannot conceive, but in whose infinity we must together lose ourselves. Blessed is that nation whose God is the LORD, Psalm 33:12.
This alone includes everything, but nevertheless it has pleased the LORD also to set forth these and other particular blessings as conditions and promises of this Covenant of Grace, which we shall now go on to set forth for clearer knowledge and greater stirring of the heart.
2. God sets forth as a condition that he will give his Holy Spirit to the covenant partners. Isaiah 44:3: I will pour my Spirit upon your seed. Ezekiel 36:27: I will put my Spirit within you. Joel 2:28: And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. Galatians 4:6: Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts.
Here everything hangs; without the Spirit man remains blind, dead, wicked, confused, and without God; but the Spirit enlightens, regenerates, gives faith, teaches to pray, sanctifies, gives freedom, comfort, is a pledge, and leads to the eternal inheritance. This is why the children of God are so troubled over the departing of the Spirit: Psalm 51:11: And take not your Holy Spirit from me. This is why they so long and pray for the Spirit: Psalm 143:10: Let your good Spirit lead me in a level land. Now this Spirit the true God promises to give to all who enter into a covenant with him.
3. To the establishing of this covenant, God offers as a condition friendship with himself — indeed, not merely as friends, but as Father and children. By virtue of this covenant Abraham is called the Friend of God, James 2:23. And Christ says to his own, John 15:14: You are my friends. Christ throughout the Song of Songs calls his Church his beloved, Song 4:1: Behold, you are fair, my love. And the Church in turn calls him her friend, Song 5:16: Yes, such a one is my beloved. And further, by virtue of this covenant, God takes covenant partners to be his children, to love, provide for, and treat them as such forever. 2 Corinthians 6:18: And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. What glory, what sweetness, what comfort, what holiness lies therein, is shown in Chapter 13.
4. God also offers, as a condition of this covenant, peace of conscience, on account of the reconciliation and of this friendship with God. Isaiah 54:13: Great shall be the peace of your children. Therefore the Surety of this covenant is called the Prince of Peace, Isaiah 9:6, and our Peace, Ephesians 2:14. He has made peace through his blood, Colossians 1:20. By this blood the consciences of the covenant partners are cleansed from dead works, Hebrews 9:14. Paul testifies to this, Romans 5:1: Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This peace the angels proclaimed, Luke 2:14: Peace on earth. This peace the Apostle wishes for believers: Philippians 4:7: The peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. This peace is a foretaste of heaven: the kingdom of God is peace, Romans 14:17.
5. God sets forth, as a condition on his side, sanctification in every part. As, 1. Illumination. Isaiah 54:13: All your children shall be taught by the LORD. Jeremiah 24:7: And I will give them a heart to know me. Jeremiah 31:34: This is my covenant... They shall all know me. 2. Life. Malachi 2:5: My covenant with him was life. Ephesians 2:5: Even when we were dead through our trespasses, he has made us alive together with Christ. 3. Truth. Isaiah 61:8: I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 4. Freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 5. Willingness. Psalm 110:3: Your people shall be most willing in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness.
6. In a word: godliness, faith, hope, love, fear, obedience, humility, meekness, wisdom, etc. Jeremiah 31:33: This is the covenant... I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. Ezekiel 36:26-27: And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them. This is what the godly so greatly long for, and over the lack of which they so painfully grieve. Now this is here offered to them. See more fully of sanctification, Chapter 14.
6. God stands surety that he will keep the covenant partners in that state of grace and friendship, so that neither they themselves, nor any other creature, shall be able to rob them of it. The steadfastness of their state shall not rest in the hands of the covenant partners — for a hundred times in one day they would fall out of it — but the Almighty will hold them fast. Jeremiah 32:40: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Peter also testifies to this, 1 Peter 1:5: Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. How secure, then, is a covenant partner! He may say with Paul, Romans 8:35, 37-39: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
7. God offers, as a Condition of this Covenant, the blessed Glory after this life. Luke 22:29: "I appoint unto you a kingdom" (the original word here carries the force of "by way of Covenant or Testament") "as my Father hath appointed unto me." To this belongs the final pronouncement of the sentence on the Day of Judgment, Matthew 25:34: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom which is prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Therefore the Surety is called a horn of salvation, Luke 1:17, and "the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls," 1 Peter 1:9. Of this blessedness we shall attempt to say something in chapter 16.
XVI. Take now these fourteen Articles of this covenant together, and consider whether there is anything more you could wish to add to them. Is it not enough to be delivered and preserved from all evil, and to enjoy all blessedness unto eternity? Is it not enough to move your soul with a full and willing assent to enter into this covenant with God? What think you — is he not bereft of understanding and sense who would be unwilling to enter into such a covenant with God on such terms? Unless God were to demand of man conditions he could not possibly meet. Let us then consider what condition God, in turn, now demands of man. I do not speak of what conditions man himself would offer, for man knows nothing of covenant, and has no desire to enter into covenant with God; therefore he makes no request and proposes no promises to move God thereby to covenant-making — but it is God who comes first to make request, and who offers benefits in order to draw man to himself.
But what, then, are the conditions that God demands of man?
I answer: none at all, none at all. Here the mind must be well instructed, so that it may enter this covenant the more boldly, and stand in it with fewer doubts; for I say that God demands nothing of man as a condition. This is plain:
1. First, from express passages: Isaiah 55:1, "And ye that have no money, come, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Revelation 22:17, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Romans 3:24, "Being justified freely." It cannot possibly be said more plainly.
2. What indeed could the poor man give or promise? He has nothing — is he not blind, crooked, powerless? Does he rightly know, rightly will, rightly do anything at all? Surely not, as was shown in chapter 4. Such a one cannot promise, and if he did, it would surely be a deceit, for he could not thereby truly satisfy God — for God well knows what man is; God delights in truth in the inward parts, and his eyes look for truth.
3. It is throughout a Covenant of Grace, and accordingly every condition on man's side is altogether excluded: for "if it be of grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace," Romans 11:6.
4. And even if he could offer something — which indeed he cannot — it would have to be devotion, love, holiness, obedience, and the like. But these very things are promised on God's side as conditions, namely, that God will himself work them in the man who enters into covenant with him, as was shown above. Now if these are conditions which are promised to be given, then they cannot be conditions which man himself must promise to perform.
Thus it is certain, and the mind is unfailingly persuaded by these considerations, that God on his side alone offers such glorious and unspeakable conditions, and demands none in return from man, and that man likewise promises nothing when he enters into this covenant.
But someone might ask: is it not necessary that man should will and believe? I answer: willing and believing are not necessary as conditions or terms upon which the covenant is entered, but they are necessary in order to make the covenant; for a covenant cannot be made except by mutual consent and agreement, and man cannot consent unless he believes the conditions set forth by God and takes delight in them. Thus they are necessary for the making of, or entering into, the covenant offered, without themselves being the conditions or terms upon which he enters the covenant. And even this believing and willing the Lord himself must first work; therefore it is said: "I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." It is God who worketh in you both to will and to work of his good pleasure.
But someone might think: does God then demand nothing at all of man in the establishing of this covenant, and does God only promise to do everything for him, so that he may live as he pleases — has he only let himself into the covenant, and shall he then be saved regardless? I answer: beyond the fifth Article of the blessings which God promises as conditions, is sanctification in every part. If now the man is to enter in, he must have a true delight and love for this article, and have an earnest desire after sanctification in every part; and if he lets himself into this covenant to that end, then he wills to live godly — and when he then lives as he wills, he will not live ungodly, but holy. So that it is against the very nature of the Covenant, and of a covenant partner, to live ungodly. And this misgiving arises in one who does not yet understand the nature of either. Besides this, there are also several other bonds by which the covenant partner is bound, able and willing to be nothing other than holy, of which we shall speak further in the last chapter. Thus we have treated the fourth, namely, the Condition of the covenant.
The Surety of the Covenant.
V. The fifth matter that must come under careful consideration is the Surety of this covenant. Since the Highness, holiness, righteousness, and truth of God do not permit God to deal with the sinner as sinner, it was necessary that a Surety and Mediator should come between them, who would remove all that stood in the way, and who would take upon himself all that was to be done on man's side, and answer for it before God. This Surety is Immanuel, Jesus Christ, true God and man, and thus near to both parties alike; in him the two natures are united, to unite God with man. He stands for man before God, to do in his own person what was required of man in order to be united with God — so that, having borne their sins on the tree, 1 Peter 2:24, and having by his obedience made them righteous, Romans 5:19, they become the righteousness of God in him, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and are thus brought back to God again, 1 Peter 3:18. This Mediator likewise stands, so to speak, before man on God's behalf, and assures him that God will indeed fulfill his promise in this covenant, and dies thereupon as the Testament-maker, in whose death the Testament becomes irrevocable, Hebrews 9:15–17: "And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead." Of this Surety's natures, necessity, satisfaction, the power of his merits, his humiliation and exaltation, we have spoken above in chapters 6 and 7. In this Surety the covenant is entered into and made firm — O powerful Surety! How blessed, how altogether happy is the man who has him for a Surety! How holy, how wondrous! How godly, how gracious, how firm is this covenant on every side! Who would wish or will to be saved by any other way than this?
The Form, or the Very Essence, of the Covenant.
VI. We now come to consider the Form and the very essence in which this covenant consists, which is mutual consent. It is not goods, not comeliness, not love, that makes a marriage — but the mutual consent declared to one another that makes the marriage. This is commonly known. If both parties consent to the terms, then peace is made between those who before were at war; so it is here too. Four things are to be noted for the clearer understanding of this matter. 1. The offering of God to the sinner, to enter with him into a covenant — but of this we shall speak in the tenth chapter. 2. God's alluring, by the offering of many advantageous conditions to move the sinner to acceptance, of which we have now spoken. 3. The sinner's consent to the request, of which we shall speak more fully in chapter 11. 4. The right which man acquires, by virtue of this covenant established, to seek from God, through faith, the goods promised, to which he is now entitled. Now the third is what joins the covenant to the first.
On God's side there is the offering, for he offers and requests.
When man, now rightly understanding the conditions, and desiring them from the heart, turns himself away from all other things and turns to God alone, and truly and heartily declares to God his consent to that covenant, then the covenant is made, and it shall remain made forever. Blessed is he whose eyes God has opened, whose will he has bowed, and whom he has brought to such an earnest consent. This very thing is done by all those who choose Jesus as their Mediator to be reconciled with God, and to live holy here in fellowship with God, and gloriously hereafter — who receive him to that end, and through faith set their hearts upon him, and place their trust and reliance upon him, even though they may not expressly have this covenant and covenant-making in view, for lack of clearer light and instruction.
The End of the Covenant.
VII. The end likewise deserves special notice; this gives great boldness to man. Since God alone promises the conditions and demands none in return from man, why then does God enter into a covenant with man at all? What indeed does God have to gain by it? I answer: not his own advantage, for he is not thereby made more blessed, more perfect, or more glorious. But on his side, it is the revelation of his grace, goodness, wisdom, righteousness, power, and the like, and it is to bring man out of love to salvation. This, this is God's end. See Ephesians 1:5–6: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." Romans 9:23: "That he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory." Ephesians 3:10–11: "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord."
If this is the end for which God comes to carry out this great work of redemption by way of Covenant, who would not gladly wish to be an object of it? Are we fit for nothing else — we are yet fit for this, that an infinite grace, that a divine and all-conquering goodness, be shown upon us. And if God will be the God of a sinner, and lead many children to glory, is it not then enough for us to enter into it with boldness, and thereby be raised up again and again? Come then, let this also be your end; and out of love for this end, in order to attain it, embrace this Covenant. And be, to the honor and glory of the grace of God, and let yourself be made blessed to that very end.
The Properties of the Covenant.
VIII. For a clearer knowledge of the nature of the Covenant, and of its loveliness, it serves also to consider its properties. These are manifold.
1. This Covenant is, for the most part, one-sided: for God devises it; God alone promises the conditions, and demands nothing of man in return as a condition; God makes the request; God works in man both the ability and the will to enter into this Covenant. Therefore it is said throughout God's Word: "I will establish my Covenant; I will make a Covenant," and the like. But because one party alone cannot make a covenant, the consent and agreement of man is added to this, and to that extent it is, on both sides, two-sided.
2. This is throughout a Covenant of Grace: God will show grace, and man will receive all grace out of grace. God comes forward as gracious, Exodus 34:6. Man receives everything out of grace: "And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace," John 1:16.
3. It is a Holy Covenant: holy is the LORD, holy the Mediator, holy are the Promises, holy are the covenant partners made. Luke 1:72: "That he might remember his holy covenant."
4. It is a Glorious Covenant: the LORD possesses all Glory; it is high and glorious goods that are promised; it is to the praise of the glory of grace; and it is especially glorious for man, that he who is so lowly is raised up in glory to be a covenant partner of that glorious God. And who shall utter the glory of the Surety, and the way by which the covenant partners are led to glory?
5. It is a Covenant that is well ordered. 2 Samuel 23:5: "Although he hath made me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things." Everything fits together so exactly, and there is such an ordered coherence in it, that on every side manifold wisdom, pure righteousness, and unfathomable goodness shine forth, in bringing man, through the Surety and through such and such leadings, into fellowship with him.
6. It is a Covenant of friendship and kinship. Isaiah 54:10: "The covenant of my peace shall not be removed." From this comes the name of friend and beloved. Indeed, it is, so to speak, an offensive and defensive Covenant — so that the friends of the one are the friends of the other, and the enemies of the one are the enemies of the other. God says to Abraham, Genesis 12:3: "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee." And the covenant partner in turn says, Psalm 119:63: "I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts." And again: "Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee?... I hate them with perfect hatred: they are mine enemies," Psalm 139:21–22.
7. It is a Marriage Covenant: as husband and wife are bound to one another in love and become one, so too comes about so close a union and oneness between these covenant partners. See on this Ezekiel 16:8: "Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine." Hosea 2:18: "I will betroth thee unto me." Isaiah 54:5: "Thy Maker is thine husband." From this flows the mutual claim of possession and the name "mine": Zechariah 13:9, "I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God." Song of Solomon 2:16: "My beloved is mine, and I am his."
8. It is a Covenant lasting forever. It is not for ten or twenty years; it is not merely as long as one lives; but it is a Covenant without end. Therefore it is often called an everlasting Covenant. See, among others, Jeremiah 31:33; Jeremiah 32.
9. It is a lasting, firm, unbreakable Covenant. This appears: 1. From Isaiah 54:10, "The covenant of my peace shall not be removed." 2. It flows from the purpose which follows upon election, which remains firm, Romans 9:12. 3. It rests upon God's everlasting Covenant with the Mediator. 4. Upon the death of the Testament-maker. 5. Upon the truth and faithfulness of God, Psalm 146:6, "Which keepeth truth for ever." 6. Upon the oath of God, Hebrews 6:17: "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath." Thus speaks the Savior, John 10:28: "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."
Consider then these properties and qualities of this Covenant with attentiveness. Is it not on every side wondrous and lovely? Who can restrain himself from at once giving himself with his whole heart into that Covenant? Which of the covenant partners does not leap for joy over so great a blessedness, and rest sweetly in God because of this Covenant?
The Seals of the Covenant.
IX. To this Covenant are also attached Seals, for its assurance. When kings make covenants with one another, these are sworn to and sealed; so it is here too: this Covenant is sworn — both in the oath made to the Mediator, Psalm 110:4, "The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek," and in the oath made to believers, of which we read, Hebrews 6:17–18. This Covenant is also confirmed with Seals, namely,
Baptism and the Lord's Supper. God wills that men should be at rest on every side in this Covenant, and await in assurance the fulfillment of the promises. God wills first to prepare man to that end, in order thus to bring him to glory, and to that end wills first, as he did Israel in the wilderness, wondrously to lead him about. And so that he may not faint along the way, but — 1. that he may again and again call the promised goods to mind and meditate deeply upon them; 2. that he may again and again be more powerfully strengthened in faith and in the certainty of the promises; 3. that he may again and again receive a foretaste of the heavenly goods, and in some measure taste their power; 4. and that he may again and again be revived, so as courageously to leave the world, to strive against his lusts, to take up his cross, and by well-doing to seek honor and glory — for these ends God gives him, in place of manna, the Sacraments. These are Seals of the Covenant; wherefore the LORD calls Circumcision a token of the Covenant, Genesis 17:11. A Seal of the righteousness of the faith, Romans 4:11. Now, knowing of what nature the one Sacrament is, we know that the other is of the same nature; therefore Baptism too is called "the washing away of sins," Acts 22:16, and the Holy Supper "the body and blood of Christ," Matthew 26:26–27, because they are signs and seals of the same. God, by his unsearchable wisdom, has appointed such signs, which, besides being seals, are also very clear likenesses of the suffering and death of the Surety, and of the power and working of the same upon the soul of believers.
From this nature of the Sacraments we see the errors of many concerning their use. We speak now not of the practice of natural men, who understand neither Christ, nor the Covenant of Grace, nor the mystery of the signs, and who come to the signs to gain the reputation of a devout person, to obtain some bodily profit or maintenance, to increase their credit, to please others, because their parents and others of their station do so — as if there were some power in the signs themselves to make them blessed, or as if the mere partaking were so pleasing to God that it would help toward salvation; as if God had commanded it to every one, just as he did the commandments of the Law, "Thou shalt honor father and mother" — imagining that thereby one may soon obey God, and that if one goes to it, one lays aside a little of one's gross sins for a day or two, composes countenance and heart into some show of devotion, and has a good intention — and then goes one's way, and eats and drinks judgment to oneself, and makes oneself guilty of the blood of the Lord. But I speak now of the errors of the truly godly, who indeed know that bread and wine are signs of Christ's body and blood, and that they assure believers of the forgiveness of sins, but do not properly know how they seal, and look there for a miracle, and only an immediate working of the Holy Spirit upon their soul — as if only when that happens does one truly come rightly to the Supper, and if it does not happen, as if one had then not rightly been at the Supper; and from this impression many go with a fearful and anxious heart, and know not how to govern their thoughts, or how to resist them, and stand, so to speak, quite still, from force, strain, fear, and confusion. Others deal with this too indifferently, ponder these truths only in their own nature, and go to the Sacrament in that bare understanding, just as if rightly grasping a matter and faith were one and the same thing — sweetly leaning and resting in him, thanking God for his goodness, and withdrawing themselves from all sinful and unnecessary intercourse and dealing with earthly things, and with fixed eyes upon Jesus, going on from strength to strength.
The Description.
X. From all this it now appears, in every respect and clearly, what the Covenant of Grace is, namely: A holy, glorious, well-ordered, and everlasting agreement or compact between the all-sufficient, good, almighty, righteous, faithful, true, and unchangeable God, on the one side, and his elect — who by nature are sinful, damnable, powerless, loathsome, and unworthy — on the other side; in which God promises the deliverance from all evil and the bestowal of all salvation, out of grace, in and through the Mediator Jesus Christ; and in which man, with his whole heart and full contentment, consents to the promises and to the way, and accepts the same; to which promises God adds the Sacraments; all to the glorifying of God and the salvation of man.
This is the LORD's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Chapter 9
Of the offering of the Covenant of Grace, in particular to every one who lives under its administration.
It is shown: I. That the Gospel is the truth, which can be confirmed upon the heart of man by the Holy Spirit alone. As means to this end: 1. The soul is led to the settling of certain matters known to all. 2. The spiritual nature of the content of the Gospel is shown, and the revelation of the mystery of Scripture. 3. The Prophecies, and their fulfillment. 4. The power of the Gospel in subduing so many nations in so short a time, without force. 5. Its power upon the heart of every believer. II. That the Covenant of Grace is offered, in particular, to every man who lives under its administration. This is proved: 1. By comparing ourselves with the wild heathen. 2. In that one hears the voice of the teachers, and the very words of God speaking in Scripture. 3. That many condemned persons were called and invited. 4. The general offer: whosoever will, whosoever thirsts. 5. Because many rejected Christ, he must first have been offered to them. 6. Unbelief is a dreadful sin. 7. Exhortations to faith and conversion are put on the same footing. 8. Dreadful punishments upon the unbelieving. Finally a difficulty raised by one of weak faith is resolved.
In order to read this chapter with greater edification, look back to the eighth chapter, beginning on page 114 and ending on page 148. In order for one to enter into the Covenant of Grace, three things are needful, namely: that one be assured of the truth of the Gospel; that one be assured that every one living under its administration is, through the Gospel, offered the Covenant of Grace; and then, that one have earnestness and desire to become, by forsaking all else, partaker of the goods of the Covenant of Grace as the one necessary portion. The first two we shall discuss in this chapter; the third in the one following.
1. As concerns the first: it is not enough that one gaze upon the goods of the Covenant, that one hear the Gospel offering the Covenant, and simply presuppose all this without examination or reflection, taking it for granted as true, and thus swim along with the current that says it is so. That produces no abiding or powerful work. Rather, the soul must be surely persuaded that all of it is true, divine, infallible, so that one says with one's whole heart: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners," 1 Timothy 1:15. It is certain that it is the Spirit alone who bears witness, for the Spirit is truth, 1 John 5:6, and "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost," 1 Corinthians 12:3. (This Spirit of faith I wish for the reader.) Having this first seed of the Spirit in your heart, be very diligent to strengthen it — not only that you may be convinced in your judgment, but also that with every movement of the heart you may say in full assurance, "Thy Word is truth," John 17:17. To be strengthened in this, it is needful that we not allow our heart to set itself against the Word of God, and that we take care not to dwell in our thoughts upon every objection that the devil might cast at us, or that the wicked and blind heart might raise — for in all of these, taken at their very strongest, there is no power to overthrow the truth and set up the contrary, but only to make the mind, not sufficiently enlightened, waver and grow confused, so that it fails to perceive the power of the truth, and leaves the man standing undecided between the two. And do not imagine that you can come to the truth only by weighing all that can be said for and against, and then drawing a conclusion; for the right way to know the truth of a matter is, first of all, to go to the matter itself, and to consider its nature alone and in itself; and having seen this, one is then in a position to examine the objections, and to show their powerlessness. Come then with a simple, upright, truth-loving heart, in which there is now a small seed of faith — though mixed with many doubts and tremblings, or through carelessness and sloth not yet confirmed in that truth — come quietly and humbly, and consider with me the word of truth itself.
1. If a man is in his right mind, and knows himself to be a man, he must believe more than he sees and hears with his own eyes and ears, and he does this daily in his dealings with other men, when this or that is told or reported to him. It is engraved on our hearts, and can never be erased from them till our death, that the Duke of Alva, for the sake of religion, caused many thousands of people to be murdered, beheaded, hanged, and burned in our Netherlands. We also know that Rome exists, and has stood for a thousand years or two, and was once the seat of the Emperors. No one will doubt either that Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus Vespasian, that Jerusalem was a great city, that there stood in it a stately Temple, first built by Solomon, and, after being destroyed, rebuilt again by Zerubbabel; that the Jewish nation dwelt in Canaan, and practiced their religion through many outward things, such as the slaughtering of beasts, washings, and the like; that this nation descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that Moses lived, and was of Abraham's seed. It is not to be denied that the first world perished before the Flood, that God created the first man. It is not to be doubted that Moses wrote a part of the books which are called the Old Testament, and that the other books were added afterward, in the course of time, by others; that the Jewish nation held these books, from a great antiquity and many centuries before Christ's birth, to be divine and a rule of their faith and life. It is a well-known truth that Jesus Christ was born some 1840 years ago now, that he was a Prophet mighty in word and in works, that he was crucified outside Jerusalem at the Passover feast. All these things are of a well-attested truth; not only are they set before us in the Holy Scriptures, but also the Jews and the heathen testify to them, the one recording this and the other that in their chronicles. If anyone should wish to doubt these things, he must first unmake himself as a man, and doubt whether he himself is even alive, or whether there are people outside his own dwelling-place, or whether there is any truth at all in anything any man has ever written.
2. Come now a step closer, and lift your eyes to those writings composed two and three thousand years ago, and look in them at the Prophecies, and compare them with their fulfillment, and see what a Divinity reveals itself in them. Take just these few, generally well known, knowing that there is a very great multitude of other Prophecies besides.
It was foretold beforehand to Abraham that his seed should possess Canaan as an inheritance. Has this not so come to pass? It was foretold to the Jews many centuries in advance that they should, for their sins, be driven out of Canaan and carried away to Babel, and that afterward, through a king who should be named Cyrus, they should again be restored to their land. The truth of the fulfillment is well known. It was foretold that after their restoration Jerusalem and the Temple should again be utterly destroyed, and that the Jewish nation should be scattered among all peoples, and should live without sacrifice, king, or any government, in contempt. Is this not so in this present age? It was foretold that a Messiah, a Savior, who should be Prophet, Priest, and King, should come from the seed of the woman, of Abraham, of David, of a virgin; that he should be born at Bethlehem 490 years after the restoration from Babel; that he should be poor and despised; that he should bear the sins of the children of God; that he should be rejected by the chief priests, delivered over to the heathen, scourged, crucified; that men should cast lots over his clothing; that he should rise again, and ascend into Heaven; and that the heathen over the whole earth should come to believe in him. Are not all these things prophesied many centuries beforehand? And are they not all precisely fulfilled in the Lord Christ? Open your eyes to that exact and spiritual account given by the Evangelists, naming place, year, day, hour, and persons — and that at a time when both friends and enemies still lived who had seen these things with their own eyes; and do not even the Jews themselves acknowledge many of these things? And are they not to be found in heathen writings too? Add to this all the types — whether of persons, events, or services, within and outside the Temple — and see how exactly and how spiritually they all correspond to the Lord Jesus, and are done away with in him; read on this the Epistle to the Hebrews. Taking all these things together, a man must close his eyes by force who can see in them nothing more than what is merely human; truly in all this a Divinity and an infallible truth shines forth.
3. Attend here carefully also to the content of these Scriptures. Compare them with anything else that any man has ever written, and you will find that all else is dark, coarse, earthly, vain, and foolish; but that in these a divine light shines. All that other writings say concerning Creation, concerning the preservation and government of all things, is but guesswork and vague generality; but come to the Scriptures, and they speak of it clearly and powerfully. What other writings — those not drawn from these Holy Scriptures — say of religion is but trifling, childish, laughable; but these reveal mysteries, purities, spiritual truths, which nature can neither conceive nor unfold — indeed cannot even see in their true splendor, even when they are set before it, unless the divine light, through the Holy Spirit, shines upon the soul. Consider how these Holy Scriptures declare God, how clearly they speak of the immortality of the soul, of the soul's communion with God, of the holiness and conformity of man's will with God's, of the resurrection, of eternal glory and damnation, of man's vileness and depravity, of the righteousness of God, of the divine way of redemption through a Surety, who must be Immanuel, God with us. Consider how spiritual these matters are, and how they are set forth, and that they all serve to draw man away from the earthly and perishable, and to lead him to God in purity, peace, gladness, and abiding rest; and, as all things are from God, that all things should likewise return again to God, and that he who alone is worthy of all should be glorified. How would it be possible that a soul, by beholding the loftiness, purity, and holiness of these Scriptures, should not be quietly drawn away from the fond fancies of the foolish heart, and brought over to the embrace of these Divine Truths?
4. Go on further, and consider what power these truths have in general upon the heart of man. When the Apostles turned to the Gentiles, what did they seem to begin but a war against all the men of the earth? What outcome did it seem likely to have, other than that they would be mocked by everyone and treated as fools — they themselves surrounded on every side by wild men, who had no knowledge of God, who were like roaring lions and fierce tigers, more ready to tear them in pieces than to listen to them? But see what irresistible power the Gospel had upon their hearts: of wolves, lions, and tigers it made lambs; that Word took them captive by the thousands, it overcame them; it caused them, without sword or weapon, to submit themselves to the lordship of the Lord Jesus, to confess him, to love him, to trust beneath his wings, and willingly to give up body and limb for him; and so that Gospel broke out east, west, south, north, and filled Asia, Africa, and Europe, so that within a few years Christ reigned from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. Consider how the devil has at all times set himself to this, to bring the Gospel utterly to a stop, and to that end has stirred up kings and potentates together with the Antichrist, who sooner grew weary and sank drowning in the blood of Christians, before they could in any measure attain their aim — indeed, the more men they slew, the more abundantly their blood brought forth Christians; and so the truth stands to this very day, in spite of the devil and the world, and against the will of none but those who lead an utterly careless and godless life, and to the joy of all who here seek God and godliness. Behold there the power of the Gospel — is that not more than merely human, is that not divine? Mark: who are its enemies? Are they not the ungodly? And who are its lovers? Are they not the godly? Marking these things, then, must not the heart be moved to say: truly the Gospel is truth, is divine?
5. Add to this further the power which the Gospel has upon the heart of every believer, which is too wonderful for words — not only turning them at their first conversion, but also filling their souls with such light, such love, such sweetness, such gladness, such largeness of heart, such freedom, that they can well do without everything else, counting all else but dung and darkness, and can well endure anything. How joyfully did the Martyrs go to the stake and the gallows, how they sang in the midst of the flames, what a happiness they counted it to be a witness for Jesus, and to be allowed to die a cruel death for him! And that not one or two, but thousands, and hundreds of thousands. And apart from the case of martyrdom, consider too how content the godly are when they feel the power of the Gospel in their hearts, how little they reckon of all that the world esteems, how sweetly their souls are comforted, and in what comfort, faith, and confidence they die. Consider the countless multitudes of believers in every age, all having the same ground, all the same Spirit, all the same life. Consider how it at once binds hearts together — if one meets another upon the road, and hears him speak the language of Canaan, their hearts are at once more one than brothers'. And note besides how the Spirit in their heart is the very same Spirit that speaks in the Word, so that there is at once a union: the very truths that are already in their hearts, the Scriptures reveal to them; they marvel when they now and then find such matters in Scripture which they had already held in their hearts before they had read that passage of Scripture with attention. Considering all these things, how can it be otherwise than that one must stand convinced, and cry out: Thy Word is the truth; whatever is raised against it is but groundless objections, or surges of feeling that only disturb me.
If someone should say: I must indeed keep silent before all these things, so that I do not know the contrary, and it is as though my heart is somewhat moved — but meanwhile I remain full of unrest, and full of pain because of rising unbelief, and yet I find no power to believe; oh, what counsel is there for me, how shall I yet come to a powerful faith?
I answer: we have said above that faith is a gift of God, and cannot proceed out of our own heart, or by the power of the outward Word. But along the way I give this further counsel. 1. Know that God, by this very way, leads almost all his children of quick understanding, and exercises them in this struggle, after which they are often the strongest. 2. Know that through this struggle God reveals to man his unbelieving heart, and his powerlessness to believe, and that faith is purely a free gift of grace from God — teaching him this, and thereby making him small before himself. Let it then not be irksome to learn this in this school, which is more useful than rest and comfort. 3. Consider that all believers of every age have relied upon this, have thereby been comforted in every trial and in death, and have thereby overcome all things. This gives at times some measure of hope. 4. Know that reason and faith are two principles which have no fellowship with one another: reason concludes a less-known truth from a well-known, infallible one. But faith has no other ground than the saying of another, and here, of God — yet it is at once ready: if only I knew that God said it! But even this reason cannot bring to the heart. One may, by argument, silence a man upon these grounds — though a keen mind always knows how to say something — but one cannot by reason persuade the heart, and make it believe all this. So then, in this state, one has to remember: if one wishes to take counsel with the understanding, then one has no faith to look to; and if one wishes to work by faith, then one has nothing that is to be believed to test upon the touchstone of natural reason. "Faith is the evidence of things not seen," Hebrews 11:2. The understanding is to be used only so far as to see what stands in the Word of God; having seen that, one then shuts the ear to natural reasoning, and by faith, without misgiving, accepts that matter, and proceeds upon it. And if one can yet believe neither the one nor the other, however much one might wish to, one must nevertheless remember: the reasoning of my natural understanding will not bring me to it; I must simply believe. This is impossible for me; it is a gift of God. I will then go to work by presupposing: I now take it that the Word of God is God's Word; there I read that there is a God, that there is a Mediator, and so forth. This I now set before myself as true; there I read that one must go to work in such and such a way — well, that I will then do. I will hold firmly to that word, and take captive my thoughts that fight against it, or that would look too deeply into the matter itself, and so, praying, wait in simplicity until God enlightens me and grants me faith. By this way God has brought many to rights. I give it as a counsel. The Lord alone grants the matter by a free dispensation, and by manifold means and ways; the very best means is often powerless, so that one may learn that faith is a gift of God.
II. Having thus seen that it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, it is, in the second place, necessary that every one be assured that the Covenant of Grace, with all its promises — that Christ, with all his fulness — is offered to him in particular. Here is the mouth of faith. Some begin from themselves, and work, so to speak, from below upward — namely: whether they are willing, whether they are amazed enough, whether they are converted and have life, whether they believe. They go out after Jesus for justification and sanctification, wrestle, pray, beseech, to move Christ that he would at last receive them; but no comfort or peace arises from this, only a hope remains that Jesus might yet one day be willing to turn to them; and if once they are assured, and enjoy peace of conscience and gladness of the Spirit for a while, it is but a byway, and they soon return again to their former oppressed state. This comes from the fact that one does not work from above downward, because one does not see that Jesus first offers himself and all his fulness to them, and that faith is the heartfelt acceptance of that offer. If this lay clear and sure in the heart, one would sooner come to assurance of one's state, stand more firmly, and sooner come to rights again. If one were assured of this truth, one would see far more clearly the dreadfulness of not accepting it. And believers would become aware of a greater power to break through in all things. Here is the foundation — well then, mark it. The question is: whether you, who live under the administration of the Gospel, whether Christ and his fulness, unto justification, sanctification, and everlasting glorification, is offered to you? What do you answer as concerns yourself — do you believe this, or do you not believe it? To be persuaded of this, mark the following reasons.
1. Whoever you are, compare yourself with the savage and wild Indians, to whom neither salvation nor Christ is proclaimed. Do you not see that God does something else for you than for them? Would you wish to change places with them? Does not a clearer light appear to you? Is not salvation nearer to you than to them? And why is this so? Shall the damnation of the blind heathen, and of those who have lived under the administration of the Gospel and yet remained ignorant of it, be equally severe? Or shall the latter have a heavier judgment? And why indeed, if salvation had not been offered to them? So that you see that the Gospel offers salvation to all who hear it.
2. Tell me, do you not hear the ringing of the bells, calling the whole town or village to come and hear Jesus proclaimed through the Gospel? Do you not hear the voice of the teachers? Do you not understand what they say to you in your mother tongue? Does the teacher not instruct the whole congregation? Does he not exhort? Does he not rebuke? Does he not press? Does he not urge every one who hears him — and thus you also — to come to Christ, and to be moved to faith? Surely, yes. Now the teachers are to be regarded by every man as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God, 1 Corinthians 4:1; as ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by them, 2 Corinthians 5:20. The Lord Jesus says of them, Luke 10:16: "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me." So you see then that you are invited and entreated, and that by Christ himself, through the teachers, which is far more than a bare offer. Indeed, you hear the very words of Holy Scripture, which is the voice, the Word of God. And these words are indeed brought to your ears, so that you cannot say that you have not heard them.
3. Consider attentively those passages in which it is discovered that the Gospel is offered to those who never accept it. Among other passages, Matthew 20:16: "Many are called, but few are chosen." It is certain that the elect alone are saved; but nevertheless, besides these, many are called — that is, requested, invited to come — who yet do not accept the salvation offered, and refuse to obey the calling. Note also Luke 14:16–18: "A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant at supper-time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse." We know that by this parable the offer of Christ and of salvation through him is set forth. I ask you: was not the supper offered to those who were bidden? Surely, yes — and that means that this offer was made; how then could they be punished on that account, and how could their damnation then be heavier than that of the heathen? Surely not at all — so that from the very punishment of the unbelieving it appears that Christ had indeed been offered to them.
From this alone the mind is fully persuaded that to all who live under the administration, Christ with all his fulness is offered. This now removes the anxiety of those weak ones who do not know whether they may come, whether they may indeed give themselves over to Christ, set their heart upon him, and accept him as their Savior — for you see that Christ calls you, and offers himself to you, indeed even before you had any desire toward him at all. Acknowledge then this grace and goodness of God, and accept it wholeheartedly; and see the horrible sin of those who pay no heed to so great a salvation, reject Christ, and are disobedient to the Gospel.
Someone might think: I know indeed that no one receives him but the elect, and if I am not elect, I shall not receive him either — how then does he call me? Does he then receive me? I answer: it is certain that the elect alone are saved through Christ; but it is also certain that Christ, by the thousand, invites and calls people who are not elect. It is also certain that the election of others shall be no cause why these should not be saved, but it shall be their own wickedness, in that they are unwilling. It is also certain that whoever he may be, if he is willing and comes to Christ, he shall be saved. Why do the elect come? Because the Lord enlightens their understanding, bows their will, and draws them to himself by his Spirit. Why do the others not come? The others are neither hindered nor kept back by him — though at times they too are made otherwise — but nothing comes of it, on account of a want of earnestness; they are indeed slothful, they have a divided heart, they are unsteady; they are like a bladder in which there is a dent so long as one keeps a finger on it, but the moment the finger is removed, the dent too is gone. With others it is hindered by something else.
Chapter 10
Of entering into, or passing over into, the Covenant of Grace, or the acceptance of the Surety Jesus Christ through faith.
Here is shown: I. The causes of the want of earnestness in various sorts of men, namely: ignorance, the lust of the flesh, false imagination, and lukewarm sloth. 2. Some incitements to pass over, namely: a. The misery of man without Christ. b. Christ's fulness. c. The offer of Christ and his fulness to every one. d. No one comes in vain. e. Not to come is a horrible sin. f. The commandment of God. 3. The removal of hindrances: a. Ignorance. b. Unwillingness. c. Fearfulness on account of sin and want of brokenness and earnestness. 4. Acts of passing over. A. Reckoning the cost. B. Believing. Faith is explained: 1. In general. 2. In particular, as belonging to itself: a. Knowledge. b. Assent. c. Trust, comprising turning toward, looking out for, waiting, accepting, surrendering, forsaking, and setting the heart upon Christ, and resting in him — having for its fruits comfort and glory.
Thus we have set before you the glory of the Covenant of Grace, and the infallible truth of the Gospel, and that this Covenant is, through the Gospel, offered to every one in particular. But what then is the reason that now every man, young and old — each of whom strives to be first in other things — does not come to this Covenant, and let himself into it?
This comes from the fact that many have no knowledge whatsoever of this covenant and its goods; they do not feel their spiritual poverty, nakedness, emptiness; they do not know that there is any other life and delight than in the enjoyment of earthly goods. The holy life, in the enjoyment, fear, love, and service of God, is hidden from their eyes. They do not know God, nor know of any Mediator; these things are too high for them, and lie outside them, as something strange, and therefore they remain within themselves, and are not moved by the offer of the covenant.
But come, whoever you are — be still a little while, and attend with care to my reasons, whether they might become a means by which you may be awakened out of that deadly sleep, and delivered from your misery, and brought over into a spiritual state.
1. O man, I say, your state is wretched. You are still outside of grace; God's wrath still lies upon you; you walk the broad way toward destruction; your end is your ruin. Look back, and see what we have said of you, chapter 4, page 56, and what follows. If you remain unmoved, if no earnestness, no concern arises in you, if you get no desire and delight to be reconciled with God, to receive power against sin, to live in the knowledge, fear, love, and obedience of God — and if this earnestness does not take effect — then I know no counsel to help you; then we must, with sorrowful eyes, watch you run on toward hell. What shall I say to you of Christ and his fulness, since you have no desire to it at all, since his goods do not please you at all, since you wish indeed to die? Yet I will speak one word more, if it might take hold upon your heart. Surely it is your eternal salvation and damnation that is at stake. You are indeed wretched now, and if you remain so, you shall indeed remain wretched forever. Now you live in filthiness and continual unrest, in darkness; and though you do not feel it now, the time will yet come when you shall become aware of it — when death comes, when the soul finds itself in hell, when one shall stand before the judgment on the left hand, and see those who are blessed standing in glory on the right hand, when you shall hear, "Depart from me, ye cursed," and the rest. These are surely truths. How then are you so bewitched by the devil that this does not move you?
2. In Christ there is indeed a fulness of all things to supply all your lack — a complete fulness to deliver you from all your sins, 1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." To reconcile you with God, Romans 5:10, "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." He has brought about an everlasting redemption, Hebrews 9:12. He has fulness of the Spirit, John 3:34, "God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him." Then light, Luke 2:23, "A light to lighten the Gentiles." Of life, Colossians 3:4, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear." Then power to give you all things and to protect you, Philippians 2:21, "According to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." Then peace, Ephesians 3:14, "For he is our peace." In a word, a fulness of all things is in him. It is the Father's good pleasure "that in him should all fulness dwell," Colossians 1:19. In Christ alone is fulness, so that outside of him no salvation is to be sought or found. John 14:6, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other." Since then in Christ, and in Christ alone, is all the fulness to make one blessed, why then do you remain with yourself, where you must surely perish? Why do you look about for goods and men upon the earth, in whom there is no help, and who will forsake you in the day of trouble? Ah, beloved, I entreat you, turn yourself away from all else, and betake yourself to this Savior, that out of his fulness you may receive grace for grace.
3. This fulness of salvation Christ presents to you. This is a great matter! The Lord does not do this for all men; very few nations have this blessing; from nearly the whole world it remains hidden. But to you, in particular, who have ever heard the Gospel proclaimed, and to you who read and hear these things, Christ is presented. I, a sent servant of Christ, to proclaim the Gospel, say to you in his name: "Come, for all things are now ready," Luke 14:17. "Let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely," Revelation 22:17. "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."
Now you are convinced — indeed, you ought to be — that the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Gospel, presents to you his fulness, presents to you salvation. I do not say that he, to you who live in earthly-mindedness and ungodliness, pronounces you blessed, and that Christ is already your Savior; but that he calls you, and that you ought to rejoice over so great a happiness, and that with readiness of mind you ought to pass over, out of yourself and the world, into Christ, to accept that fulness, and to give yourself over to him. Come then, delay not; if your heart is at all touched, do not look back, as did Lot's wife.
4. No one comes in vain — this is a great matter! This is roundly promised, John 6:37, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." John 3:36, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." This indeed removes every difficulty. Come then, and obtain in him that great, that everlasting salvation.
5. If you do not come and believe in this, you commit the most horrible of all sins that can be conceived, for: 1. You count that... God says unto you, "Hear ye him," Matthew 16:5. Thus speaks John also, 1 John 3:23: "This is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ."
Consider now attentively these things, and take note whether God does not give you some prompting. If so, and if you then do not go on to receive Jesus by faith, then it must be either that you do not know him, or that you are not willing to have him, or that you do not dare to accept him.
If you do not know him, then be diligent, and rest not from prayer and from letting yourself be instructed, until you know him — for without knowledge of him you must be lost. Note these passages: Isaiah 27:11, "For it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour." Hosea 4:1, "The LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no knowledge of God in the land." Verse 6: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Romans 10:14, "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?" Isaiah 53:11, "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many."
If you love your lusts more than him, and are unwilling to have him — know that whoever is unwilling when he is presented to him, shall himself be refused when he is willing, Proverbs 1:24: "Because I have called, and ye refused." Verse 28: "Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me." Verse 29: "For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD."
If you do not dare — where does that come from? Are your sins too great? Do you fall back again and again? Then know that in the whole work of redemption God has in view the praise of the glory of his grace, Ephesians 1:6. Therefore "hath God concluded them all under unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all," Romans 11:32. The whole purpose is that he might show himself to be merciful, gracious, longsuffering, and the like, Exodus 34. This must the beginner, and the one further advanced as well, continually and clearly set before himself, until he has that same end, and desires his own salvation to that end also, and chooses to be led by such a way as is best suited to it. Then it will not seem so strange to the man that God does not perfect him in the first moment, or in a short time, but often still leaves him sluggish, lets him fall into sin, and even for a time lets him remain captive to sin — for he shall then see that he thereby becomes the better known to himself, and that God's grace, in receiving him, shall show itself the more clearly. Romans 5:20, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." And then one shall also not be so downcast when one has fallen, nor stay away from God so long in seeking reconciliation again, and in praying for new strength; but that very design of God's shall lead the fallen one, with the greater humility and shame, all the sooner back to God. So that sins ought never to be a reason to stay away from Christ.
Or do you not dare, because you do not know whether you are yet rightly broken, whether you truly are willing, and the like? Is it your concern merely for something bodily, merely to be delivered from damnation, merely to obtain honor and standing among men or among the godly? Are you unwilling to be delivered from your lusts and sinful ways, and do you then come only with your lips? If so, then indeed be afraid. But is it your concern to be justified and sanctified? If so — then it must be that you desire, with your whole heart, to be freed from all your vile thoughts, lusts, and delights in the world, even from that respectable, profitable, pleasurable sin, so as never in eternity to commit them again. And do you truly believe that all the gladness of the soul lies in being reconciled with God, in knowing, fearing, loving, obeying, and glorifying him, and in enjoying his love and comfort; and do you, though you do not yet see and taste these things in their power, nevertheless set them before yourself, so as to seek them alone, and pursue after them all the days of your life? If so —
2. Then it only remains to lay hold of the Lord Jesus by faith. It is needful that we give some explanation of the nature of faith, since many lack a clear knowledge of it. To be mistaken here, and to proceed upon that mistake, is the most perilous thing in the world; to be dark and confused here is the cause of many despairs and discouragements among the children of God. But when one has clear light here, faith is the wellspring of all the spiritual, living movements and workings of a regenerate soul, of many comforts, and of progress in sanctification. Listen then attentively to this explanation. First we shall say something in general, and then proceed more particularly to the nature of the matter.
To believe is to hold a thing as true upon the say-so of another. If the matter does not concern us, then we let the truth stand there unregarded; but if it does concern us, then we act upon the truth — we become glad or sorrowful, we follow or we flee, and so forth. If one does not do this, it is a sign either that the matter reported does not concern us, or that one does not believe it. For example: someone has great cause to be in a certain city — indeed, his prosperity or even his life depends upon it — but before he can arrive there he must pass through a great forest. At the edge of the forest someone meets him and says: there are robbers in this forest, they know that you are coming, they lie in wait to murder you; but I know a way where they are not, or if they should come, I am strong enough to protect you — only follow me. But you must first throw away your money, or you will not get through. If a man does not do this, does not follow, it is a sign either that he does not believe it, or that he does not care so much about being in that city, and so he turns back. But if everything for us depends on being in that city, and we believe it, then we shall throw away our money, and follow that person, even limping and continually stumbling. Apply this now to the spiritual, and you have a clear conception of faith.
Now, in order to consider more particularly and closely the nature of faith in God through Christ, let your thoughts turn to the elements required in faith, as they are commonly set forth, which are knowledge, assent, and trust.
1. For faith, knowledge is necessarily required — both of oneself, and of the spiritual goods, and of the Mediator.
For a man to believe, he must in some measure know himself with respect to his sinfulness, damnableness, powerlessness, hatefulness, and unbearableness, of which we have spoken in chapter 4; and he sees this not merely by inference, but sees himself as such, plainly, both in nature and in deeds — he is affected by it, distressed, anxious, sorrowful, and that not for a short time only, but for as long as he remains unreleased by God he goes on languishing, and cries out: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Romans 7:24.
For a man to believe, he must have some knowledge of the spiritual goods — of reconciliation with God, of knowing, fearing, loving, and trusting God, and, out of that disposition, of hating and warring against sin and practicing the virtues — so that he comes to delight in them, and grows so enamored of them that all worldly things lose their esteem and love with him. "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after," Psalm 27:4.
For a man to believe, he must know God in some measure, and especially also in his righteousness, that he "will by no means clear the guilty," Exodus 34:7 — so that one sees that one can expect no grace or forgiveness merely from a general goodness of God, whether by prayer or by turning, but that sin must surely be atoned for with the punishment due to it — so that he becomes helpless and hopeless in himself, seeing that he has nothing with which to pay; and that, turning himself toward God, he becomes aware that God is holy and righteous, that he cannot approach God, and that God, being angry at the sinner, can neither approach the sinner in favor, nor is willing to.
For a man to believe, he must have some knowledge of the counsel of God to save man through a Surety, and so he must know that Jesus Christ, God-and-man, is that Surety, who by his suffering and death has atoned for the sins of his children, and has fully satisfied the righteousness of God, and who bestows his holiness upon them, so that they become the righteousness of God in him, 2 Corinthians 5:21 — so that he knows him as the way, the truth, and the life, and that no man comes to the Father but by him, John 14:6, and that salvation is in no other; "for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," Acts 4:12.
For a man to believe in Christ, he must have knowledge of the Gospel and of the offer of salvation through Christ, and that he can have no part in that Surety except by accepting him through faith, and by giving himself over to him in turn.
I say, then, that in order for a man to believe, he must have knowledge of these things — whether more confused and obscure, or more distinct and clear. Without this knowledge it is impossible to believe; for "how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God," Romans 10:14, 17. "By his knowledge" (that is, the knowledge of him) "shall my righteous servant justify many," Isaiah 53:11.
2. For faith, assent is necessarily required, whereby one holds as true, accepts, and acknowledges what one knows. "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true," John 3:33. To this assent we have, in the previous chapter, sought to move every one. It is often very weak in the children of God, but considered in itself it is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," Hebrews 11:1. It is an unshakeable foundation, an immovable rock on which one may build a house that shall stand firm against every assault. It is so clear a demonstration, that one can as it were see it with the eyes and touch it with the hands, so that one is fully assured, as it is written of Abraham, Romans 4:21 — to which full assurance the Apostle exhorts and moves every one, Hebrews 10:22 — so as, with full sail, on a straight course, and with a steady and swift voyage, without fear or dread, to sail into Heaven, which is what is chiefly meant by plerophoria, full assurance.
3. The proper nature of faith consists in trusting acceptance. The Lord Jesus comes to dead, blind, deaf, sinful souls, and makes them helpless and at their wits' end, and presents himself to that sinner for justification, sanctification, and glorification, saying: "Behold me, behold me," Isaiah 65:1. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters," Isaiah 55:1. "Let him that is athirst come," Revelation 22:17. "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out," John 6:37. The weary and hungry soul, hearing that voice calling for grace, gladly accepts that offer with all its heart and delight, loves Jesus and all his fulness, lays hold on him as its portion and possession, gives itself wholly over to him, lays the weight of its salvation upon him, places its soul in his hands, and thus lets itself be carried by him, and rests and trusts upon his arms. This is the force carried by the Hebrew word he'emin, to believe. Thus the Holy Spirit describes faith. John 1:12: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." Colossians 2:6: "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him." Psalm 71:6: "By thee have I been holden up from the womb." 2 Corinthians 8:5: "They first gave their own selves to the Lord." Psalm 37:3: "Trust in the LORD." Isaiah 28:16: "He that believeth shall not make haste." Psalm 2:12: "Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."
It may indeed happen to believers not to have this proper and most essential fruit of faith in its full power and clarity; they are subject to many darknesses, doubts, weaknesses — yet the truth of the matter reveals itself in the heart through various acts, besides that the soul languishes on account of its dissatisfaction with their unreconciled and sinful state, and spends her days and years in heartache, sighing, and trembling, unable to draw near to Jesus — except that Jesus, and the reconciled and holy life, are precious to her, and that the happiness of a soul who may live in fellowship with Jesus lifts her thoughts up to heaven. Besides these things:
Is there in the believing soul a hunger and thirst after Jesus? She cannot do without it — she perishes of hunger, she weeps for thirst, she prays, she begs for the crumbs of grace, as we see in David, Psalm 42:2-3: My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? And Psalm 63:2: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee.
There is also in faith a turning, a bending of the heart toward Jesus, that out of his fullness one might receive grace for grace; to this the Lord invites every one — Isaiah 45:22: Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. When the soul does this, she is not thereby carried straight into heaven; she still stands or lies before the door, she sinks fainting at the feet of Jesus, and swoons for lack and hunger. If she cannot catch sight of Jesus, she still looks out for him — she whines, she cries, she prays, she weeps, she wrestles, and all this in the very presence of Jesus, whether she sees him or not. She is resolved; she cannot be turned away, even should she die at his feet — if she must die, then let her die there, and see indeed whether it could be in Jesus's heart that one who runs to him in distress, without comfort, should be forsaken and thrust away from his feet. So did the Church, Micah 7:7: I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. So did David, Psalm 130:5: I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait. Psalm 5:4: In the morning I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will keep watch. Thus the soul labors until she gains greater strength to receive Jesus and to trust in him safely and securely, from which comfort and sanctification then flow.
Comfort flows from it, and peace of conscience — I say it flows from it, whether faith be weak or strong, to show that comfort and peace of conscience are not the essence of faith but only a fruit of faith; see Romans 5:1: We then being justified by faith, have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:8: In whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. From this blooms the glorying in tribulation, Romans 5:5, and the triumph over the enemies, 1 Corinthians 15:55-57: O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Sanctification also blooms from faith. That is the end of believers — for that reason too they received the Lord Jesus and gave themselves over to him. That is the end for which Jesus was given to them, 1 Corinthians 1:30. Faith cleanses the heart, Acts 15:9: having purified their hearts by faith. Faith works through love, Galatians 5:6, and is dead without works, James 2:26.
This we account sufficient to give a clear knowledge of faith; this is now the work to be pursued. We set forth the Covenant of Grace in the eighth chapter, and that to this end: that one might gain a desire for it and give oneself over to it; we set forth that the Lord Jesus offers that Covenant to every one, promising to receive into it whoever is willing and comes, and that there is no other means of entering it than through faith — it is all invisible: the Lord of the Covenant, its Mediator, its benefits and promises, so that here neither hand, nor foot, nor eye avails, but faith alone. We have shown that mutual consent makes a covenant. There can therefore be no consent on our side except through faith; this, then, is now what a longing soul must pursue: here is wrestling, here is striving, here is laboring, of necessity. The exercise of faith is not to be performed once only, but continually; one must not only enter into that Covenant through faith, but must go on to live by faith — through that faith despising, renouncing, and fighting against all that does not agree with that Covenant, and letting that faith be adorned with holiness, the livery of the covenant partners, until one, as a covenant partner, obtains the end of faith, namely the salvation of the soul. 1 Peter 1:19.
Chapter 11
...who complain of their troubles and yet do not wish to be found out by others. e. Those who hold themselves assured of their state — some without any ground; some on false grounds; some on good grounds, which nevertheless they wrongly apply to themselves; in exposing which it is shown at the same time to the true believer that something different is present in him than in the temporal believer. This is done by three marks: I. From sorrow. II. From faith itself. III. From sanctification. 3. Some difficulties that breed doubts in believers are removed.
We have disclosed to you the nature of the Covenant of Grace; convinced you of its truth; assured you that it is offered to every one in particular through the Gospel; shown what faith is and how one enters into it thereby, and sought by various motives to persuade you. We therefore think it needful to expose to every one whether he has truly entered into that covenant or not, whether he truly believes or not.
You, whoever you are, who read this or hear it read — I ask you, and do you answer the all-knowing God: what do you say of yourself? Are you a covenant partner or not? A believer or not? Come, examine yourself, search yourself closely. And should you not? For:
1. At this present moment you are either a covenant partner, and so a child of God, or else a child of the devil; you are not both, nor are you neither — there is no third state. Lay this to heart: so glorious or so despised, so blessed or so wretched are you. Is this then not worth the trouble, that you examine yourself as to what you are? Shall one be careless in so weighty a matter? That, after all, is the work of the foolish virgins — think on their end.
2. Not all men, not all who are baptized, not all who go to church and to the Lord's Supper — indeed, far, far the fewest of these — are true covenant partners and believers, and go on to salvation. Look over the host: when you observe men swarming past one another like ants, when you see a packed assembly in the church, then consider — surely Simon the sorcerer too was baptized, Acts 8:13. Surely the guest without a wedding garment also sat at the table, Matthew 22:11. Surely half the virgins were foolish, Matthew 25:2. Surely there are but few elect, Matthew 20:16. Surely but few find the narrow way and enter through the strait gate, while many walk the broad way and go through the wide gate to destruction, Matthew 7:13-14. Let this then come home to you, and will you not ask yourself: to which company do you belong? Lord, is it I? Matthew 26:22. Master, is it I? Matthew 26:25.
3. To neglect turning back upon oneself and examining oneself is exceedingly harmful, for it keeps a man asleep in carelessness; it makes him lose time; it renders the means of salvation useless and powerless to him; it hardens his heart against all God's threats and judgments; it keeps him in the world and in sin — indeed, it is the key by which he locks heaven against himself and throws hell open before himself.
4. To examine oneself is very profitable: thereby one becomes aware of the abominations that are in the heart; one learns to know the avenging justice of God; one becomes troubled, terrified, distressed; one flees to Jesus for justification and sanctification; earnestness enters the heart. And when one becomes aware of grace, light, life, faith — it is not to be told what joy that awakens in the heart, what strength it gives; one gains fresh courage again and again, one gains bolder access, one learns to know the ways of God with souls; it gladdens the heart, and it sanctifies a man in all his deeds. 1 John 3:3: Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Neglecting this self-examination out of laziness, faintheartedness, or despair robs one of all comfort and joy, hinders one's growth, and withholds from God his glory. Come then, examine yourself thoroughly, and answer fully that question: Lovest thou me, Simon? John 20:17.
5. It is also God's express command; whoever neglects this and does not submit to his counsel is disobedient to God — how then should it go well with him? Lamentations 3:40: Let us search and try our ways. Zephaniah 2:1: Search yourselves narrowly, yea, search narrowly, O nation not desired. 1 Corinthians 11:28: Let a man examine himself. And 2 Corinthians 13:5: Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? Follow this counsel and command of God, and you will find it good for you.
6. One can come to know one's state — whether one is in the Covenant of Grace with God, and whether one is a believer or not. The notion that this is impossible dampens earnestness; therefore I say: it is attainable, one can know it. The Bride knew that Jesus was hers, Song of Solomon 2:26: My beloved is mine, and I am his. Job 19:26: I know that my redeemer liveth. Isaiah 60:16: Thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. Romans 2:38: I am persuaded, etc. 1 Corinthians 2:12: Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Galatians 2:20: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live. See — thus one can be assured. Come then, strive after this, that you too may come to assurance. And in the same way a natural man can also be convinced that he is still unregenerate.
7. Yet although one may indeed come to this by the grace of the Holy Spirit, not all attain to it; just as there are thousands who go to hell who imagined they would come to heaven, so too there are many who come to heaven who feared they would never get there. And those who have once been strong soon grow weak again and fall into darkness, Psalm 30:7-8: And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. LORD, by thy favour thou hadst made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. In some true covenant partners there is still much darkness, so that they have no clear grasp of what sufficient light and life actually is; and though they know it well enough in others, and could plainly tell it to someone else, yet they have no sufficient light to see that grace in themselves. And besides, so much of the old man still remains in them, and they stare at it so fixedly that they doubt whether this can indeed coexist with grace, and so they live between hope and fear. Thus they are poor even though they possess much that is good. Others have a good opinion of themselves, but deceive themselves miserably. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. Proverbs 30:12. See then how needful it is that one go into one's own heart, and examine oneself, who and what one is.
To help you in this, I will set forth several conditions, and you, examine to which sort you belong. In the first place we set before you those who are without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. In the second place we set before you those who are graced.
As to the first sort: one finds people who have neither knowledge, nor desire, nor occupied thoughts, nor conversation, about God, about heaven, about hell, about the soul, about the covenant, about the Mediator, about faith, about conversion; their thoughts go no higher than the earth, and no deeper than the visible, and of invisible things they know not what to say. Is the soul immortal, and is there a heaven and a hell? That they will find out after their death; they will wait to see where God will send them — they leave that to God, that is not for them to search into. Whoever has the good fortune to get heaven will then be best off; they must simply hope for the best. You fool!
Others well know that they are godless, earthly, unregenerate — they say outright that, remaining as they are, they cannot be saved; and yet there is neither feeling, nor sorrow, nor earnestness to forsake their sinful life and be converted; they are bewitched and possessed by the devil. They will not turn back upon their heart and state; they know well that it would come up unclear, that they would then become anxious and troubled, and that does not suit them. They cannot bear any exposure; they will not hear that talk from the preachers, whether these expose them from the pulpit or in private — they want that pot kept covered. They hate those who reprove them, just as it stands written, Isaiah 30:9-11: It is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. These are already condemned by their own selves, and shall be judged out of their own heart and mouth.
Others are not so godless; they are good-natured and gentle in temperament, and outwardly religious, and yet they see that they do not live spiritually, that they do not have the Spirit, nor communion with God, nor faith, but that their life is in visible things; they are indeed convinced that they are without grace, but it does not trouble their heart much — there is no earnestness, no distress, and if ever a stirring does arise to truly cross over, some beloved sin hinders it, and they abandon their impulse with a sigh, choosing the earthly, like the young man, Matthew 19:22.
Others come yet a step nearer — they escape the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, 2 Peter 2:20. They join the company of the godly, they do many things, like Herod, Mark 6:20. But they do not come to the actual conclusion of what state they are in — that they leave in the middle, they do not know it. Indeed, they complain much of their spiritual poverty to other devout people, and speak of great fear that they are not born again; but this is done quietly, so as thereby to gain the esteem, the love, and the sympathy of the godly. For when someone deals faithfully with them and declares to them that they seem still to be in mere nature, and not in the state of regeneration, they then turn on him, changing their tone and defending themselves; and the outcome often shows that they deceived others, and kept themselves from rest. Yet of this sort there are also some who, greatly troubled, fearful, and anxious, spend their whole life in this conviction, yet remain what they are, without Spirit and life.
There are others who have great presumptions of the heart: they well know that they stand well with God, that they will surely be saved — of that they have not the slightest doubt, and even if all the teachers in the world were melted into one, they still could not be moved from that faith and that assurance. But what ground, after all, do these people have? Some have no ground at all. Others rest on false grounds. Others have indeed true grounds, but wrongly claim them for themselves, and so deceive themselves. These we shall now go on to expose, and at the same time we shall show the true covenant partners that it stands otherwise with them than with these.
Those who assure themselves without any ground are generally ignorant people, who know neither God, nor the Mediator, nor the Spirit, nor spiritual life; they grasp that hell is terrible — for that they have no liking; well then, had they gone there, they say, that would have gone badly, that was too grievous. Because that seems too grievous to them, they imagine that they need not fear coming there, and because they wish to be, after their death, in their imagined or rather so-called heaven, they suppose they will certainly get in — of that they are confident, and so live on in the earth. These lie sleeping on the very brink of hell, and only wake themselves when they open their eyes in hell — when it is too late, as in Luke 16:23. It is indeed true that many weak-believing godly people are well assured by the Spirit of God in their hearts, and yet can give no reasons for their assurance; but they have reasons, even though they cannot set them forth, and so they can nonetheless see and feel them as well as others who do set them forth; indeed, they know that in their assurance they have communion with God in Christ. These we shall expose more fully at the end.
Those who assure themselves on false grounds live in nature and in visible things, and set their conscience at rest, or prevent it from becoming disquieted, by all sorts of self-devised and forged marks. Among others, these are chief:
a. God is gracious and merciful; how could it be in his heart to punish his creatures so severely, especially when they pray to him for grace? He that asks receives, he that knocks, to him it shall be opened. — Answer. Know that God is good to Israel, to such as are of a clean heart. Psalm 73:1. But the face of the LORD is against them that do evil. Psalm 34:17. The prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD. John 9:33. God heareth not sinners. Isaiah 1:15: When ye make many prayers, I will not hear. The foolish virgins also knocked and cried, but were not let in, Matthew 25; and Proverbs 1:28: Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer.
b. Christ died for us all; if we then have sinned, in him we have reconciliation again. — Answer. That is not so. Christ giveth his sheep eternal life, but there are those who are not of his sheep. John 10:26-27. He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. Hebrews 5:9. How then shall the goats be condemned to his left hand!
c. I do not live so godlessly; I am baptized, I go to the Lord's Supper, I go diligently to church, I am upright in my dealings and conduct, I do not curse, I do not carouse, I do not commit adultery, I read God's Word, I say my prayers — what more would one have of me? If one cannot be saved so, who then can be saved? By that reckoning many would be shut out of heaven. — Answer. Add to this — I fast twice a week, I give the tenth of all that I possess, I thank thee, Lord, that I am not as other men. Luke 18:11-12. I tell you that by the thousands such sorts of people lie in hell, and that by the thousands more of such shall yet come in, and that you, who build on this ground, are heading there too — therefore turn while it is not yet too late. Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20. Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. James 2:10. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them. Galatians 3:10.
d. God blesses me most abundantly; that I reckon a sign that he loves me. — Answer. Job 21:7: Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, become mighty in power? Psalm 73:18: Surely thou didst set them in slippery places. Proverbs 1:32: The prosperity of fools shall destroy them. Did not the rich man receive good things in his life? And yet hell was his end. Luke 18:25.
e. God chastises me — I have endured much adversity and opposition in my life, and thus I think: whom God chastises, him he loves; I may here suffer so much that hereafter I need not suffer. — Answer. God chastises his children that they might be partakers of his holiness, but he punishes the wicked in his wrath. Isaiah 57:21: The wicked, saith my God, have no peace. Afflictions are often for the wicked but the beginnings of eternal damnation; far be it, then, that one should conclude God's love from outward affliction.
So you see, then, that none of these things are grounds on which anyone should settle his state and imagine himself saved. If you have rested on these grounds, you have deceived yourself. Therefore awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead.
Now we come to the third sort of those who deceive themselves, and that by setting up good and sound marks, but wrongly claiming these for themselves, since these things are not actually present in them. The marks which they generally set up are these: sorrow over sin and the anguish of the new birth; faith in the Lord Jesus and the resulting joy of the Spirit; and conversion and sanctification of life.
Beforehand we may say of these: 1. that they do not seriously examine themselves, bringing themselves with composure into the presence of God, with anxious concern whether they too are deceiving themselves, praying with David, Psalm 139:23-24: Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. But the settling of their state flits swiftly through their brains; they dare not suspect themselves, but without examination, on the mere flicker of something that only resembles good, form good thoughts of themselves; and they speak far more broadly than lies in their heart, for they are accustomed to look at things outside themselves, and then to speak of them with eagerness, without reflection upon the heart — whereas the truly sincere generally have many more concerns.
2. Just as the settling of their state, so also the grounds on which they build are merely superficial, merely a surface show; the sorrow, the faith, the sanctification are not in the heart, but merely hover in the understanding, and show themselves only outwardly, or are but a natural work; the matter goes no deeper, their self-examination, their concern, their longing goes no deeper. They occupy themselves with thinking and speaking of these things in the abstract — of faith, hope, love, what their nature is, in what state the church is — with complaints of others' lifelessness, mistakes, and so on. In these things they are generally the first and the most eager; whatever remains outside themselves is the object of their concern — it may well be spiritual, and they will readily speak of it earnestly, for that amuses them. But the concern of true believers is to see and feel these things in their own heart; they want God — on him is their eye and their heart; spiritual things draw them toward God, and when this does not happen, they cannot be content with it, they cannot rest satisfied in it.
3. Just as temporal believers do not seriously examine themselves, so too they do not wish to be exposed by others. If the marks are set forth from the pulpit, they are inattentive — they pay no heed, or only in order to learn, so as to be able to set it forth to others, and thereby be reckoned intelligent, spiritual, and experienced; and if they do pay heed, their heart is on someone else, thinking: that concerns him, let him take it to heart — but as for themselves, they are already secure enough; that only makes them more settled, and this settledness makes them more careless. But when someone deals earnestly with them, and begins to press them, and thus to expose that they cannot remain hidden, then they become uneasy, they defend themselves with body and soul, they diminish their esteem and love for such a person; and though they might, by a certain course, retain the name of godly — indeed, running more risk thereby than acting wisely — they will very readily abandon that particular path, for these people keep a close eye on love and esteem. But the truly godly are very glad to be exposed; the discovery of their faults, the deformities of their soul, is to them a great blessing, and they rejoice over it within themselves, even though at first their nature sometimes feels a stirring against the one who exposes them. Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil. Psalm 141:5. And when through such discoveries they become aware that God has laid grace in them, that not only gladdens them, but gently draws them up toward God; they feel a quickening in faith and love, and an earnest resolve to live more godly. He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself. 1 John 3:3.
Having said this beforehand in general, let us now come to each ground in particular, so as to expose the temporal and the true believer more clearly to themselves.
Of the True and the False Sorrow.
The first ground is sorrow over sin: this is their reasoning. Scripture says, blessed are they that mourn, Matthew 5. God dwells with the contrite, and will give comfort to the mourning, Isaiah 57. Thus: I am sorrowful, I am distressed when I have sinned; I have had great struggles and terrors; therefore I reckon that I am then a child of God, in the Covenant of Grace, and a believer.
But we answer that not all sorrow in man springs from spiritual light and life, and therefore not all sorrow is the right sorrow to which salvation and comfort are promised. Paul speaks of a sorrow according to God and a sorrow according to the world, 2 Corinthians 7:10. Consider Saul, 1 Samuel 24:17-18: Then Saul said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept. And he said to David, Thou art more righteous than I: for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil. [1 Samuel 24:]20: The LORD reward thee good. 1 Samuel 29:21: Then said Saul, I have sinned: return, my son David: for I will no more do thee harm. See there — he accuses himself, he confesses his wrongdoing, he weeps, he wishes a blessing from the LORD upon the one who reproved him. And yet it was Saul. Consider Ahab too, 1 Kings 21:27: And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. Thereby he showed the very greatest sorrow, and seemed to faint from grief, and fasted. And did not Esau seek the place of repentance with tears, when he heard that the blessing was gone? That is, he sought to move his father by tears, that he might revoke the blessing and bless him. Hebrews 12:17. And did not Judas himself have remorse? Matthew 27:3.
Do you think that both of these men did this merely outwardly, in appearance? No, I mean it — it truly went deep to their heart. Do you think: I gain comfort and quiet in my soul when I have wept and prayed properly? Saul wept too; natural men weep well enough too. The man who lives under the ministry of the Gospel, however godless he may be, will in the distress and terror of conscience weep and pray as well, and upon weeping will feel some relief, for weeping unburdens the oppression of the heart by a natural cause. The Papists are remarkably at ease once they have been to confession, supposing that they have thereby obtained complete absolution; so too, when a man in his sorrow has forgiven himself his sins, thinking that God has heard and answered his prayer and tears, or has quieted himself by other specious reasons, he soon becomes calm again, and hopes that all will now go well. From all this you must surely be convinced that from sorrow, from weeping, you cannot conclude that your state is good.
It depends on the cause of the sorrow; it depends on the manner of the sorrow and the disposition of the soul within that sorrow. The causes of sorrow in the unregenerate are these:
Some are sorrowful through melancholy — they are by nature gloomy-spirited; whatever they seize upon, they brood over it, and when they take it up in spiritual matters, they become sorrowful, heavy-hearted over salvation, over sin. These are to be known by this: that they give no place to reasons, and do not strive to be delivered from that sorrow, remaining always the same, unless the heavy vapor of the brain lifts for a short while, and then they swing without reason too far to the other side — becoming giddy, full of talk, glad without ground. Yet such people assure themselves of their salvation, though for the most part they remain in fear.
Some are sorrowful through terror of damnation; the conscience becomes alive, shows the sinful life, the righteousness of God, and the dreadfulness of damnation; this terror lets them not sleep, makes them waste away, and makes them weep and cry out loud. During that time they do not assure themselves; but once that storm has passed, some take this as a ground and reason that they have been through the anguish of the new birth, that they are converted, that they have won the struggle — and on that they rest content. To these we say: if nothing more than this has followed — if no true conversion and faith have followed — then it was but the fearfulness and trembling of a Felix, Acts 24:25; that it was but the shuddering of the devils, James 2:19. So that you would deceive yourself if you made that the support of your state.
Some are moved and weep purely because they see that the preacher uses such moving gestures and affecting words, and because they see that others are moved, so that their heart likewise becomes constricted and they too fall to weeping, as in the time of Nehemiah, chapter 8:10: All the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.
Some are sorrowful because through the committing of the sin they have made themselves disgraced before men, or because it has brought them shame, so that they fall into poverty or trouble; or because they fear the punishment of the authorities. This grieves their heart, and on that occasion heavy thoughts about salvation come along with it as well.
Some are sorrowful about their sins because these were too enormous, too gross — it was against the light of nature, against a living conscience, against a good upbringing; it grieves them, and another person also comes into consideration — it grieves them over the misery the other has suffered on their account, just as one who had murdered his father would always carry a nagging guilt; so it is also in lesser matters. To conclude from this sorrow that one is in the state of grace is likewise a mistake, for even the heathen have such sorrows and pricks of conscience. Romans 2:14-15.
Examine yourself, you who settle your state upon grief and sorrow, whether it is anything more than what has just been described — and I advise you to unmask it, for you deceive yourself, as has now been shown. To convince you still further, and at the same time to make known to the sorrowful of Zion their true grace, consider now the causes and properties of the sorrow that belongs only to the children of God. I say this beforehand: that these above-named things and the sorrows arising from them are indeed also found in the truly godly, but they have, besides these, several other things and dispositions as well. As follows:
1. True sorrow is over sin as sin — that is, they look further than the mere act; they bring themselves into the presence of God, and mourn before his face; they see that they have sinned against his highness, against his goodness, against the holiness of God, against the bond which the creature has toward its Creator; they see that it was against the fear, against the love, against the obedience which they owed to God. And though they do not always see this so distinctly amid their sorrow, yet it lies so in the heart; this grieves them, this softens them; and even though at times they cannot firmly believe that they are still received as children, there is nevertheless a quiet drawing toward God, and it grieves them that they have sinned against God, and they approve the righteousness of God should it please him to punish — indeed, they carry as it were the sentence of severe chastisement in their heart. See Psalm 51:9: Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
2. True sorrow extends not only to sinful deeds, and to the greater sins, but also to the lesser sins, to the neglect of doing good, to the lack of holy manner and aim in the working out of virtue, to the disordered, vain, and sinful thoughts in which even the will itself does not consent; indeed it reaches through to the sinful nature itself, to the wickedness and inconstancy, and so to the powerlessness to do better in the future — so that on occasion of a sin committed, one finds oneself wholly sinful within and without, and stands distressed over it, mourning and saying: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:6. I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. O wretched man that I am! Romans 7:18/24.
3. True sorrow is over the lack of fellowship with God, and a longing after it; sins are indeed the causes of their sorrow too, but the sorrow does not stop there, and even when they are aware of no notable sin, the soul is often mournful, and if one asks her, Woman, why weepest thou? John 20:15, the heart would have its answer ready: because my Lord is gone, because I am so estranged from God, because the Lord hides himself from me — I cannot live so, is it then so dark, so sinful; oh, that it were as in former days! Why does the Lord so hide his face from me, when the Lord well sees that I am pining away because of it? Oh, that my heart remained constantly with him, that I were more zealous and more constant in prayer, that I lived in tenderer fear. When wilt thou come unto me? Psalm 101:2. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. Lamentations 1:16. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. Psalm 42:2.
4. True sorrow seeks to increase and to spiritualize itself. The sorrow of temporal believers is soon over; it concerns only this or that deed, this or that fright; they seek to escape it, either through diversions or through kind words, or simply to let time wear it away. But true believers complain greatly, and mourn over the hardness and unbelief of their heart; could they but once be truly broken, feel the hatefulness of sin, see the wrath of God over it, and thus be wholly crushed and confounded — that is their wish; and when they do not attain to that, they are sorrowful, and complain: O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Isaiah 63:17. Yet they are not content merely to have the sorrow itself, but greatly desire its spiritualizing — namely, to find themselves in their filthy garments before the face of the LORD, Zechariah 3:3; and thus to be ashamed before the LORD's face, so that they dare not lift up their eyes, or draw near, but stand afar off like the publican, Luke 18:13, and say, Ezra 9:6: O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. They wish to sink away before the face of the LORD in their unworthiness, with the prodigal son, Luke 15:19. They desire an evangelical sorrow — that is, a melting away in tears of love, and the sorrow over sin arising from it. They desire to justify God, and thus to submit themselves under his chastising hand in silence, saying: I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him. Micah 7:9. They wish to mourn as a child and to trust in grace, and not as a slave. They cannot cease from mourning until they have become aware of some hope of reconciliation with God, and some liberty of conscience in Christ.
5. True sorrow works conversion, 2 Corinthians 7:11. Godly sorrow worketh a repentance not to be repented of, unto salvation. Not that they at once fully overcome the sin, and would never fall into it again — but through that sorrow they gain a greater hatred against that sin, they make unfeigned resolutions in the presence of God against sin, and they renew again and again the fight against it.
If these last five things are not truly in you, then be assured that your sorrow is not the right sorrow — that has not been the anguish of the new birth; do not take it as a mark of your transferred state, but be assured that you are still in nature. But if these things are truly in you, then also take good care that you neither deny the grace nor esteem it too small, but recognize from it that God has granted you life — even though you do not have the above-named things in as great a degree as you once had, or as others have them, or as you would wish to have them; for where this true sorrow is, the two following marks will surely also be found.
Of True Faith and Time-Faith.
II. The second mark of a true believer and covenant partner, and of a time-believer and false covenant partner, is taken from faith itself. Faith is indeed a certain mark of a true covenant partner and heir of salvation; yet not all who imagine that they have it possess the true, saving faith. In order to expose each in this respect, we shall first set forth the disposition of a time-believer, and then the disposition of a true believer.
I now speak to those who consider themselves assured that they have true faith — and I ask you, is it all truth? Do you also deceive yourself? Say it in your heart, that one may miserably deceive himself here, for it is not all true faith that bears the name of faith. We read that Agrippa believed the prophets, and yet he was a heathen, Acts 26:27. Simon the sorcerer also believed, and yet he had neither part nor portion in salvation, Acts 8:17, 21, 23. Those sown upon the rock believe, but it is only for a time, Luke 8:13. So you see how dangerous it would be to rest secure upon something that merely bears the name of faith, and that one therefore ought to search himself closely, whether he has a true or a false and seeming faith.
Those who have but a seeming, historical, or temporary faith have — one less, another more — knowledge of God, of Christ, of Scripture, of spiritual things; but with that knowledge they view these things only as they are in themselves, outside their heart. Those things are not in their heart; they have taken on no form, no image impressed in their heart, so that the Word is truth — in their heart there is no truth. For these things, which they view outside themselves, to be in their heart, and to be changed into that same image, 2 Cor. 3:18 — thither their thoughts do not go, nor their cares, nor their longing, nor their labor; they look upon these matters in thought and in idea, as one views a costly work of art or the garden of a prince, and forgets and delights himself in that viewing, having no thought, no care, no longing, no labor to obtain possession of it. Whether it is his own, or whether it is not his own, is at that time not the object on which his thoughts dwell.
Those who have but a seeming faith are — one less, another more — assured of the spiritual truths: that there is a God, that Christ is the Savior, that there is a salvation to be obtained for him, and a damnation to be expected without him. Of these and similar truths some are somewhat assured, yet speak of them freely and with boasting; others are so assured of them that they would die affirming that they were true. By much contemplating these truths, and speaking much of them, they grow accustomed to them, and imagine that they have a share in them, since they are so vividly assured of salvation; but they do not search their own heart — there is no earnest and settled dealing with God, with Christ, to receive him, to make him dwell in the heart, and truly to give themselves over to him without any reservation; the heart remains a heart of stone, Matt. 13:20. But by believing the truths that lie outside them, and by the assurance that they believe them, they settle themselves and imagine that those truths are within them, and that they are true believers.
A time-believer indeed feels a testimony in his heart that he is a believer, and has indeed gladness and friendliness; but it is his own spirit, or some other evil spirit, that testifies to him that he believes — he himself produces his own gladness, or else the excellence of the spiritual things he contemplates delights him.
He seldom comes to himself; he works always outwardly, and if he does come to himself — because he sees and believes the truths — he dares not suspect himself, he does not search himself; he would think he was sinning if he doubted his state. He sees at a glance that all is well with him, that he believes; he looks upon the matters and upon their loveliness — these he believes, he thinks, and should he not desire and receive them? He looks to the promises, but passes over the qualifications of those to whom the promises were made. So his own spirit testifies that he is a child of God. Here the devil sometimes plays cunningly along, and knows so to work upon the imagination that it seems to him as though he feels heavenly joy in his heart, when it is but a tickling sensation, without ground or reason, without communion with God, without lowliness of heart and love of God, and at most consists only in the contemplation of the spiritual mysteries and the goods of the children of God. Just as the Queen of the South swooned merely at the contemplation of Solomon's wisdom and glory, in which she yet had no share, so he proceeds boldly, without struggle or wrestling, to take hold, to hold fast, to cleave to it, straight on — for he is assured, even though his conscience would sometimes want to tell him the truth; but they silence it, they will not hear of it.
So time-faith, then, is but a wavering dream, an imagining, a staring at the truth and loveliness of things, a rejoicing in promises that were never in fact made to them — all without examining the heart, and without having true and earnest dealings with God and Christ. It is a flickering in the understanding, an imagining of the fancy, superficial and bare work, without a true heart, without those truths having taken root in their heart. So that whatever they see, think, or do, they do it in hypocrisy, and though they know better, they suppose that it is truth in them, that their state is surely well; they deceive themselves, they dream and suppose that they are awake, yet they cannot rightly be called well awake. Of this disposition of time-believers we read, Matt. 13:20-21: "He that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself." Heb. 6:4-6: "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, and then fall away," etc.
Let us now set the disposition of the true believer here over against this, so that both the time-believer and the true believer may be fully exposed — the one in the truth of grace, the other in his mere imagining. In the true believer these things are made manifest:
1. True believers receive the Lord Jesus, and that with their heart, and that often. In receiving Jesus, they do not merely gaze upon the benefits and blessings; they do not remain hanging in the contemplation of these things, but they go to the fountain itself; they have dealings with God, with Christ himself. Toward him they turn, unto him they look out, after him they long, him they receive, upon him they cast themselves, to him they give themselves over, with him they desire to be united, and in feeling can only remain content when united to him; and thus they exercise those acts of faith which we described above, whether more weakly or more strongly — their working is directed toward God, toward Christ, so Holy Scripture generally speaks. John 1:12: "As many as received him." John 14:1: "Ye believe in God, believe also in me."
They receive the Lord Jesus with their heart; their work is no outward work, no work of the brain — they begin from within. The heart feels its own dryness, the heart longs, the heart receives, the heart gives itself over; they see the deficiency of the heart, they test how the heart is affected, and from that disposition they take their measure — in the heart they seek to have the Lord Jesus. Whatever is without the heart they count light, and it only grieves them; it cannot delight them. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness," Rom. 10:10. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith," Eph. 3:17.
They receive the Lord Jesus often — indeed, a thousand and a thousand times over. It always seems to them that they have not done it explicitly enough, not clearly enough, not fully enough, not purely enough. Indeed, this receiving is their daily food, and therefore they do it again and again — not always in order to enter into the covenant, but in order to unite themselves ever more nearly and closely with Christ. Their daily stumblings teach them to do this well; they see that without him they cannot come to God. The desire for rest and peace of mind drives them continually toward him who alone is their peace; and above all this, love — love draws them thither again and again. They are also subject to seasons of darkness, forsakings, and recurring unbelief, and since there is no remedy outside of Christ, they cling to him continually, and renew again and again the acts of faith. As a man lives by the continual breathing out and in of the air, so they live by the continual receiving of Christ, who is their life; and as a man faints who cannot draw breath, so they too faint when they cannot bring Christ by faith into their heart, or their heart into Christ. This continual repetition of believing and receiving is seen throughout the Psalms and in the Song of Songs.
See there, you have a clear distinction between a time-companion, who passes over his own heart, remains hanging in the contemplation of things, and merely proceeds on in his outward conduct upon an imagined transition; and a true believer, who works with the heart, has dealings with Jesus, and finds his strength and life in the frequent receiving of him.
2. True believers see and recognize a great preciousness in Christ for themselves. They see not only an excellence in the benefits obtained through Christ — namely, to be delivered from all evil and to become partaker of all salvation; they see not only a preciousness in all the daughters of Zion, and a glorious happiness in those who have a share in Jesus, saying: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance," Ps. 33:12. This the time-believers can also see, though with a different regard than the true believers. But Christ is precious to them, and that for themselves, in order actually to enjoy him, 1 Pet. 2:7: "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious." They see such a necessity, with an application to themselves, of having him as their Surety and Mediator. They see such wisdom, goodness, righteousness, and truth of God, that God would save them through Christ, that they will have no other way, but embrace this one with all their heart. Christ is to them so high, so glorious, so lovely, that to enjoy him is so sweet and pleasant to them that everything else vanishes before him. Not knowing whether they have a share in him — oh, how precious is he to them! Could they but have him, would he but be theirs, then their soul would live. This preciousness of Jesus draws eye, heart, and hands toward him. When they do enjoy him, they know what a costly treasure they have found; their care is that they may not lose him — they hold him fast, they do not let him go. The preciousness and dearness of Jesus is the subject of their conversations; and if they find someone to whom Jesus is also precious, they love that person with all their heart, and that person, precisely on account of that esteem for Jesus, becomes dear to them.
3. True believers receive Jesus wholly and alone, and give themselves over to him without any condition or stipulation, to be brought by him to God, by whatever way shall please him.
Time-believers, since they have no true and heartfelt dealings with Jesus, likewise do not want the whole of Jesus. They are willing enough that he be their High Priest, to reconcile them with God and to intercede for them, but have no desire toward him as Prophet, to be inwardly taught by him in their heart, unto the shaming of the discovered wickednesses of their heart, unto the contempt of all that is lovely in the world and in visible things, unto a near contemplation of God, unto a transformation of soul into the image of God — though they do have some desire to have outward knowledge from the Word, and for the sake of knowledge itself, for all knowledge is desirable, and also for the honor of being esteemed enlightened and understanding; for a time-believer is a person full of self-love and self-regard.
Neither have they any desire to have him as their King, to be governed by him in their thoughts, aims, and deeds according to his will. They will say it well enough — they will express it also in their prayers, which are but words spoken into the air — but their heart is not affected by it. But they are willing enough that he be King over that company to which they attach themselves, to show that he holds with them, to preserve them, and to give them glory, so that in that splendor their own glory might shine. And thus they do not, with their heart, give themselves over to him in everything.
But true believers receive him heartily as their Prophet, High Priest, and King; they do not know which office they desire most, though now the one, then the other, comes most into view according to their circumstance — but they cannot separate them; they see that they need all three in order to be saved, and that the one cannot be separated from the other. They pray, "Teach me," Ps. 25:5; "Open thou mine eyes," Ps. 119:18. They wish to be found in Christ, not having their own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, Phil. 3:9. They wish that the blood of Jesus Christ would cleanse them from all sin, 1 John 1:7; that he would intercede for them, Rom. 8:34. They wish that he would reign as King over their heart, defeat and crush all that is rebellious against him, and subject everything to him. They receive him as he has become for them: wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, 1 Cor. 1:30.
They receive him alone as their one and all-sufficient portion; they renounce all rival, competing things — willingly and gladly, without any reservation — Christ alone in the place of all. They know that he alone is sufficient for them; even when they do not presently taste it, it is their sorrow to cleave to anything else, and to be rid of that they run to Jesus. They can say with Asaph, concerning their sincere and heartfelt affections: "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee," Ps. 73:25. And with Paul, Phil. 3:8: "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ."
They also give themselves back over to Jesus without any condition — for sweet and sour, sorrow and gladness, light and darkness — to endure with him and for his cause, so long as he but leads them in it, makes them fit for it, and strengthens them. They give themselves wholly over to his guidance, not only to be brought by him onto Tabor but also onto Golgotha; let him but take from them whatever is pleasurable in the world, let him but send them whatever is bitter — so long as he himself is not far off, so long as they may be with him in solitude and stillness; and even should it please him that they must go without the sensible experience of his fellowship, and that too be to his honor, they submit themselves to it, willing to be led by him even past, indeed through, hell itself into heaven. See, thus does a true believer receive Jesus, and thus does he give himself back over again.
4. True believers are not content merely to have received the Lord Jesus for such an end and in such a manner as has now been said, but their heart remains fixed upon Jesus, and they cannot be at ease until they have and enjoy actual communion with God in Christ; according as he is far off or near, so are they glad or sorrowful.
A time-believer remains attached to these matters only so long as he can discover them, contemplate them, may speak of them, is esteemed and loved among the godly, and things go well for the party to which he has attached himself; then he is content, then he is foremost, and a cheerful man.
But a rightly believing person has to do with God. The LORD is his treasure, and therefore his heart is there also; he soon perceives whether the LORD is near or far off. If the LORD hides himself, the soul loses its joy, mourns, is restless, is troubled, is overwhelmed — as we see in the saint, Song 5:6: "My beloved had withdrawn himself... and my bowels were moved for him." Ps. 42:6: "Why art thou cast down, and why art thou disquieted within me?" Ps. 77:8-10: "Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?" Ps. 102:3: "Hide not thy face from me." Verse 5: "My heart is smitten, and withered like grass." Verse 7: "I am like a pelican of the wilderness." Verse 8: "I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top." Verse 10: "I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping." It goes with them as it went with Moses, when the LORD refused him his presence — he could not be content; and when God spoke to him thereupon, saying, "Shall my presence go with thee, to give thee rest?" Moses answered, "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence," Exod. 15:16.
If the LORD is far off, they long for his presence, and through longing they even faint and grow dull. Song 1:2: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." Ps. 119:18: "My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy word. Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me?"
If the LORD is far off, they nevertheless cannot give it up; though they sometimes grow discouraged, they renew the struggle; they cannot cease seeking him, even if it be only by turning their eyes upward, as with Hezekiah, Isa. 38:14: "Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward." And with the prophet, Ps. 122:1: "I lift up mine eyes unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the heavens." So did the Bride, Song 3:1-2: "By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I said, I will rise now... I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not."
And when the LORD is once again found by them — when the LORD dispels the dark clouds, shows them his love, speaks to them kindly and to their heart, calls them by their name — then all sorrow is forgotten; only it troubles them that they were so unbelieving, so discouraged, so resistant. Then they rejoice like the Bride, Song 2:3-4: "I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love." Then they are content and rest in a sweet stillness; then it is, "The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him," Lam. 3:24. Then they say, "But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works," Ps. 73:28. Then they are wholly content as to how the LORD will lead them in time to come; they give themselves over to him with quiet trust, saying, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory," Ps. 73:24. So then they rejoice in the LORD, and the joy of the LORD is their strength, Neh. 8:11. And even if they are not admitted to sensible fellowship, yet if their faith remains strong, they still rejoice, 1 Pet. 1:8: "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."
This joy is very far distinguished from the flickerings of the time-believer which we have exposed above. For this true joy is in God, in the union of the soul with him, in the presence of the LORD as their reconciled God. Luke 1:47: "My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." Phil. 4:4: "Rejoice in the Lord alway."
True joy makes the soul humble in the presence of the LORD. Luke 1:48: "For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden." This Mary said immediately upon the outpouring of her gladness.
True gladness binds the soul more closely to God in love. When David in gladness said, "The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I trust," then he said, "I will love thee dearly, O LORD my strength," Ps. 18:2-3. "I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications," Ps. 116:1.
True joy makes the soul holier, draws the soul away from all that is not God, and makes it willing and lively to do the will of God. Ps. 119:32: "I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart." Of which holiness we shall now speak in the third mark.
Of True and False Holiness.
Faith cannot exist without holiness, for it purifies the heart, it is active through love, and lively unto good works — so that he does not truly believe who has no holiness. So that all men who are still in nature, who live godlessly in pride, arrogance, gluttony, drunkenness, unchastity, unrighteousness, lying and deceiving, hatred and envy — these and all such — truly have no faith. Let them boast as they will, we say to them: if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, Rom. 8:13. Hear Paul speak against such, Phil. 3:18-19: "For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." Against these we speak no further.
But time-believers, who keep themselves from these gross sins, deceive themselves with a supposed holiness; they suppose that they are regenerated and sanctified, and upon this they build their assurance, though their holiness is in fact no holiness at all. And the truly sanctified, seeing their own sins, are greatly troubled whether they believe rightly and are indeed covenant partners, since they fear that they are not sanctified. In order, then, to expose both sides, we shall first set forth false holiness, and then true holiness.
1. A time-believer can outwardly live in such a way that nothing can be said against him; he can keep himself from the open ungodly and from the sins in which worldly people live, so that there is a very clear and great distinction between the world and him, and one would say, "that man is no worldly man." 2 Pet. 2:20: "For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning." Indeed, a heathen Abimelech will stand where a David falls; see Gen. 20 and 1 Sam. 11.
They can not only forsake vices, but excel in the practice of every sort of virtue, namely: diligent and devout in religion, precise regarding the Sabbath, speaking much of spiritual things with zeal and liveliness, praying — and that indeed with tears, through the passion and softness of their temperament, especially when they lead prayer in company; joining themselves to the godly, like Ananias and Sapphira, and Ahab; associating much with powerful preachers, like Herod; running after them, like Simon the sorcerer; grave in their clothing, willing to serve others, patient in affliction, forbearing under wrong, liberal and generous to the poor, temperate in food and drink, showing love toward the good. In sum, they can forsake all the sins that a godly person forsakes, and practice all the virtues that a godly person practices — this is evident in the Pharisees, Phil. 3:6: "Touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." This is evident in the accounts of the lives of the heathen; this is evident among the Socinian heathens and the Quakers.
This the time-believers can do not only outwardly, but they can also turn inward and pay attention to the thoughts and movements of the soul, that these do not run amiss but are virtuous and honest — so that their doing does not proceed from hypocrisy, but from the heart, and that the heart is inwardly disposed just as they outwardly show themselves. Paul declares that from his forefathers — which includes the time before his conversion — he served God with a pure conscience, 2 Tim. 1:3. The Quakers are a proof of this. The heathen bear witness to this in their writings. A heathen went alone every evening to reflect upon his day and said: "What evil have you healed today? What sin have you withstood? In what are you now better than before?"
Another said: "Those who pay no heed to the movements of their own heart cannot possibly prosper." Another said: "Do you not know that a virtuous man does not act for show, but for the sake of the good itself? What advantage does he then have from his conduct? Can you think of any better reward for a virtuous man than his own good and honest deeds themselves?" Another said: "God is near you, he is with you, he is in you — so I say, there sits a holy spirit within us, which takes note of our good and evil deeds; this one treats us just as it is treated by us: live before men as though God were watching."
All this they can do out of love for virtue and to render a service to God. The old saying is well known: oderunt peccare, etc. — the good hate to sin out of love of virtue, but the wicked out of fear of punishment. Paul says of himself before his conversion, Acts 26:9: "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." John 16:2: "Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." And is this not the very intention of idolaters in their works?
From all these we see that a natural man can go so far in forsaking sins and practicing virtues, that a man cannot, from this manner of life just set forth, assure himself that he believes, is a covenant partner, and is born again.
Yet this we must know: even if someone could go so far by nature and outward illumination, there have nevertheless been very few who have come, or come, to such a state; but even if there were but a single example — indeed, even if such a possibility existed without any example at all — the argument would still fail, that one should on that account consider himself converted. It is generally only self-glory and a desire to be seen by men, or else other aims that are not good. And we particularly hold that time-believers generally do not go so far; God sends a judgment upon them, because they are not obedient to the truth which they know; they are ambitious people, they seek honor, esteem, love, sympathy — one by a magnanimous path, another by a humble one, according to what he perceives his own abilities to be suited for. At first their conscience would indeed tell them that their conduct was not good, but they find that the things they pursue are right, or they have so long regarded them through the lens of their own desire for honor that they suppose them to be right; with this they appease their conscience, and, without reflecting on their original ground and aim, they say, "Come, see my zeal for the LORD," 2 Kings 10:16. Also, the narrow way is generally not pleasant to them, and if by a broader way they can attain their aim, they turn themselves about, forsake that inward and narrow way, and betake themselves to the broad one — especially when more glory and honor, more pleasure and less oppression, come of it. Indeed, when godliness becomes a reproach, when the godly are despised and persecuted, and they themselves begin to be suspected on account of the godly, then they forsake them and become fellow-persecutors, even the most vehement ones. The proverb is: every apostate is a hater of his former order. Of this the Lord speaks, Matt. 13:21: "When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended."
Here perhaps the reader's thought will be: if heathens, Quakers, and time-believers can come this far, and yet perish, then who can be saved? What more could one expect of anyone? And what indeed do true believers have above these? We answer: if one were to look only at the outward, then many godly persons would in many respects be surpassed by these others. But there is in the godly something else altogether, such that the very least of it incomparably exceeds the very greatest of what the time-believer has. And do you ask what that is? It is Spirit and life. Is not a living dog better than a dead lion? Is not a deformed living man better than a beautiful man cast or carved of the purest gold? Is not the movement of life in the very smallest degree better than the whirring and workings of a clock? Surely, yes. Well, so it stands here. Time-believers have neither Spirit nor life; but true believers have both. Therefore the work of the time-believers is worthless, and that of the true believers is good. There must be Spirit and life, or all is vain. Rom. 8:13: "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Gal. 5:25: "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." Here is the whole distinction: time-believers work only by reason, by fairness, by the loveliness of the matters themselves, or by temperament, or by upbringing, or by fear of punishment, or in order to be seen by men, and, in a coarser or subtler way, to obtain honor, love, esteem, admiration, or goods — but they do not work by Spirit and life. The godly, however, work by the Spirit and out of the inward beginning of the spiritual life. Now, in order to see this clearly, consider the following points:
1. The sanctification of true believers takes place through faith, Heb. 11:6: "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Thus faith works: a. Faith receives Jesus unto justification and sanctification, whereby the soul is united with the Lord Jesus; it becomes one spirit with him, 1 Cor. 6. And Jesus dwells through faith in the heart, Eph. 3:17. Jesus and the soul, being thus united, life then flows from Christ the Head into her, being his member; and by virtue of that union, and through that inflow of life, the soul works according to the nature of the life of Christ. Of this Paul speaks, Gal. 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." The soul does not always feel this union and inflow, but the believer will find that in his doing he often lifts up his heart, and looks out for that inflow, desiring from Christ power and spirituality in his work; and this shows that he works through Christ, who gives him strength. And when he does not perceive this disposition of soul — whether habitual or actual — then he has no satisfaction in his work, however well it was otherwise accomplished. b. Through faith the true believer believes, enjoys, or hopes for reconciliation with God and adoption as a child, and he regards God, or seeks to regard him, as a reconciled Father in Christ; and so he works, or seeks to work, as a child and covenant partner; and insofar as he can work with a childlike heart, thereafter he rejoices, even though in other respects he sees defectiveness in the work. See Eph. 5:1: "Be ye followers of God, as dear children." 1 Pet. 1:14-15: "As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." c. The true believer believes and perceives in God, and in communion with God, such holiness, glory, and loveliness, that everything outside of God is too paltry, and that sin is filthy, contemptible, and hateful; and through that desire and hope, or faith, of obtaining that salvation, he despises what is contemptible and hates what is hateful, and thus faith overcomes the world, 1 John 5:4. And so the heart is purified by faith, Acts 15:9.
These three things are manifest in the true believer, though in varying degree, and at one time more than another. This is the spiritual life considered in its beginning, and from this ground flows the power of the mortification of sin and the practice of the virtues. Examine yourselves, whether these dispositions are the ground of your workings or not; if not — if you know nothing to say of these dispositions, and they are truly not in you — then all your work is worthless, even though you were esteemed a great saint. But if you find in your work, whether in the forsaking and overcoming of some sin, or in the practice of virtue, these dispositions in truth, even if only in small measure, then there is life, and the deeds proceed from life, however weak they may be, and however great a power of corruption may still remain there.
2. The practice of true sanctification takes place with a heart that represents God to itself — not God in the general relation as God, but as our God, as God in Christ, whether one feels, believes, hopes, or labors so as to have him as such; with such a working of the soul it represents God to itself in its doing and forbearing. This God requires, Gen. 17:1: "Walk before my face." So did Enoch, Gen. 5:22: "Enoch walked with God." Nehemiah prayed to God even while he was speaking with the king, Neh. 2:4-5. "I have set the LORD always before me," it is said, Ps. 16:8.
3. True sanctification proceeds from the love of God; even though a true believer does not always — and many never very perceptibly — feel that sweet and joyful motion of love, yet love nonetheless resides in the ground of the heart and reveals itself there: in the pain over its lack, in the longing after his presence, in the seeking after and high esteem of God, desiring to make him the end of their actions; in being glad when God is acknowledged, exalted, feared, served; in the inclination to glorify him yet further. From that ground proceeds the forsaking of sin, since sin is against God's sovereignty and awesome majesty, etc. From that ground proceeds the practice of virtue. Now tell me, dear friend, can you be content merely to have done the work? Surely not. Is it a refreshment to you, even though you did it without a heart inclined toward God? Surely not. But if you do it with a heart that wishes and seeks to do it for God, because he is worthy to be served by you, that strives to do it with a heart inclined toward God, with a heart that sweetly seeks to unite itself with God — even if one cannot fully attain it, and that very disposition would gladden you in the work — see, that is love. With such a heart a godly person strives to forsake and to do all things. John 14:23: "If a man love me, he will keep my words." 1 John 5:3: "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." Whatever one does, if it is not out of love, it is worth nothing, 1 Cor. 13:1-2.
4. True sanctification proceeds from the fear of God: since a truly godly person unites himself through faith with God in Christ, and represents God to himself as such, and receives love for God, it cannot be otherwise but that he acquires an awe for the majesty and holiness of God, so that he dares not neglect what God commands him, and dares not do what God forbids him. That childlike awe rises up in them again and again as occasion arises: whether the fear of God restrains them from what they would otherwise have done, or the fear of God impels them to what they would otherwise have left undone; and if the fear of God is much before their eyes in the practice of this or that, and makes them careful to do it well, that brings them delight; but if the fear of God has not been in their heart, then they become sorrowful, even though the matter was otherwise well accomplished. Because the fear of God governs the children of God, therefore they bear the name of God-fearing. Luke 2:24: "This man Simeon was righteous and devout."
The fear of God kept Joseph from sinning, Gen. 39:9. When he wished to assure his brothers of his good faith, he said to them, "I fear God," Gen. 42:18. The fear of God moved the steward Obadiah to preserve the prophets of the LORD, 1 Kings 18:3-4. The fear of God Job had continually before his eyes, Job 31:23: "Destruction from God was a terror to me, and by reason of his highness I could not endure."
5. True sanctification takes place in obedience to God. God's will is their law; God's will is the motive that sets them in motion; God's will is their will — they forsake this, they do that, because it is the will of God. They regard the majesty of God with pleasure, they exalt him above all. They place themselves beneath that majesty, and acknowledge with pleasure their subjection, and the obligation that lies upon them toward God; and here is added the bond of love in the covenant of grace, so that they do not regard God as a stranger but as their own God, and so they come to avoid sin and to the practice of virtue. This we see, Ps. 40:9: "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." Rom. 7:22: "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man."
Now take these five things together, and note that they cannot be separated from one another, that the last four have their ground in the first, and that where the one is truly present, the others are present also. Here now you have the essential distinction between the virtue of the time-believer and that of the true believer, between true and false holiness.
Examine yourself by this: if these dispositions and movements and considerations are not in your heart — if here there blossoms neither the forsaking of evil nor the doing of good — then you are not born again, your sanctification is not the true one, it is but appearance. Oh, that God would give you a sight of this, to be truly convinced of it unto conversion, so that you would no longer take your own virtue as the ground of your assurance. But if you see that these five things, even if only in ever so small a measure, are in you — that your soul has satisfaction or dissatisfaction in your work according as these things have shown themselves in your doing and forbearing, that you have these things in view, and are active to work from this ground — then rejoice, and make your calling and election sure from your good works. You indeed rightly always have reason to be ashamed and humbled over your best works, yet do not therefore deny the grace of God that has been given you, since it is a beginning of life that shall grow and never die.
Thus we have set before you the nature of a time-believer and of a true believer, as clearly as it has pleased the Lord to grant us grace to do. Yet even were it set forth as clearly as it could possibly be set forth, still, without the special workings of the Holy Spirit, not all — neither time-believers nor true believers — would thereby be convinced. The former on account of prejudice, blindness, and wickedness; the latter on account of ill disposition, bewilderment, and fear. Yet the Lord is able to bring it home to the heart, and by it to convince the one unto terror or conversion, and the other unto comfort and sanctification.
An unregenerate time-believer might read these marks and approve of them, and say that he was so disposed as the true believer is here described, through lack of thoughtful searching of his own heart.
Another time-believer, perhaps, upon reading these marks, will become convinced that all his supports are being taken from him, and will thereby grow uneasy in the reading, and in pride and peevishness throw the book from his hand.
Another, perhaps, by some special grace of the Lord, will be made sensible, through the disclosure of his wretched state, and will thereby be brought to Christ.
A true covenant partner, reading these marks, might rather become more troubled, because he would not be able to find everything in himself in this way — whether because he cannot in truth distinguish the grace that is in him from that same grace in a greater degree, which he supposes must be present before he will believe that he has any share in it; or because he compares himself only with the one side, namely the time-believers, seeing how far he still has in common with them, just as our old Adam still has his nature and workings, and does not inquire whether he does not have something more than they, and is a partaker of the nature of true believers; or because he is in a bewildered, unbelieving, despairing, discouraged, or contradicting state, in which the person is not fit to examine himself, but occupies himself only with receiving Jesus by faith, and waiting until the Lord grants his soul more stillness, light, and Spirit, so as to know the things that have been given him by God.
But others, I hope, will see their grace, be strengthened in faith, rejoice in God's goodness, and be quickened in sanctification.
Perhaps some, seeing that there is grace in them, will indeed conceive some hope, yet not fully dare to settle their state, fearing that they are deceiving themselves — concerning which they have some anxious thoughts.
1. Objection: "It is a great thing to be a true covenant partner; I dare not imagine myself to possess so great a benefit, and if I settled my case upon those evidences which I dare not deny, and yet it were not so, I would have deceived myself terribly." I answered: a. Though the matter may be too great for you to receive, it is not too great for God to give. It is too great for other believers as well, and yet they have received it. God wills to demonstrate and make known His infinite goodness; therefore He seeks out the lost and takes up the despised. b. There is a sure mark by which one can tell whether he deceives himself in this self-examination or not. Namely: if, after settling his state upon this examination, a man remains in himself, grows secure and careless, and proceeds upon his imagined grace to live for earthly things — that is a sign that he has deceived himself. But if, having seen his grace and settled his state upon it, he becomes more lively in the exercise of faith, in drawing near to God, in love, in fear, in obedience — that is a sign that he has not deceived himself, for it is true grace that produces this. This is the fruit of a right hope: "Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself" (1 John 3:3). And suppose — let me speak to your case for a moment — if you had wrongly claimed grace for yourself, and were thereby brought to true faith and conversion, would that not have been a happy error? There is no failing so grievous as that which keeps us back from Christ unto justification and sanctification. If, then, this hope now makes your life more lively in the spiritual life, let no fear without cause trouble you.
2. Objection: "I fear that I only perceive this with my understanding, and that it seems true to me only because I know the matters and frames of the soul." I answered: a. Man is a rational creature; God works in him according to his nature; God brings about all the movements of grief and joy in man by means of the understanding. Therefore it need not trouble you that these things are clear to your understanding — but if they remain in the understanding only, and do not proceed to the will, then indeed be concerned. b. Consider whether your will is not also touched: do you grieve, do you weep, do you pray, do you long, do you yearn, do you receive, do you yield yourself, do you turn from the one thing and to the other? Then you will see well that these matters do not remain in the understanding, but touch your heart. If you have seen that these actions are right, then this welling-up of feeling need not unsettle you.
3. Objection: "I am so listless; everything in me is so hard; grief works with such force that I can hardly feel it; my faith is like a lame hand that is laid upon a thing but still cannot grasp it; my sanctification is so sluggish, there is no zeal in it. Besides, I find no change in myself, nor any joy over what I do find in myself." I answered: a. Some Christians cling too much to sensible feelings and passions, which are indeed to be desired and not to be rejected, but they must know that one is not to judge the weakness or strength of the spiritual life by the weakness or strength of the passions. Some, owing to their natural temperament, are little given to passions in anything they do, and are moderate in joy and sorrow, but for all that work no less with understanding and will, and accordingly proceed no less in spiritual things. When the Lord is pleased to lead someone in this manner, he ought not therefore to think that he has less life, but should, in that sober way, working with his whole heart, go forward in the ways of the Lord — the mistake lies in his own judgment, not in the matter itself. If this were well considered by many, and they ordered themselves accordingly, they would make great progress. b. But since you are truly in a faint and deadened state, I am sorry for you, and must tell you that so long as you remain so, you cannot expect much comfort. c. Yet from this you must neither condemn your state nor call it into doubt, for you are judging life and strength only by degree. Faith can indeed exist without assurance and comfort — these are fruits of a strong faith, but do not belong to its essence. Strive rather to get free of this; take heed, do not give yourself over to slothfulness, which is the reason why so many remain so faint; the Lord will let himself be found by those who seek him. Do not wish to be led otherwise than the Lord wills; do not struggle against him; be not stiff-necked but pliable as clay under the hand of the Lord. Bear with others; stir up others in simplicity with a genuine warmth. May the Spirit of the Lord make you lively.
4. Objection: "I am greatly perplexed by my deficiency in sanctification; I find a whole body of sin within me; I fall indeed into great sins; I am very unsteady; I pray with all my heart for strength, and it seems that in prayer I gain much strength, yet I do not turn away from sin as quickly as that, I am often not given the occasion, or I fall right back into it. How can this stand together with grace? I often wonder whether there is any sincerity in me at all." I answered: a. There are children, young men, and fathers in Christ; there are times of gracious visitation and of desertion, so that one ought to judge not by the degree, but by the truth of the matter. b. God generally lets something particular come upon his children, to keep them humble, and to teach them that they are saved by grace through Christ, apart from — indeed, against — their own merits. God lets some wrestle more with sin, because he wills to be glorified through them in a special way by his grace; and it is wisdom then to remain content under that dispensation, while keeping up a hatred of and a struggle against sin, and a desire for holiness. c. If it is truth in you, then the aversion to sin, the displeasure and distaste over sin, and a longing after godliness will not merely remain, as a matter of time, at the bottom of the heart; but each time you come to yourself again, you will bring that condition before the Lord, and you will seek of him that God would deal with you in this respect according to your own heart — and you shall be assured: as the Lord deals with you according to your heart, you shall be delivered from sin, and shall grow more in the spiritual life and in sanctification. You will find that there will be sincere and unfeigned, heartfelt resolutions against sin, that there will be a struggle not only against sinful deeds but also against the most secret thoughts; you will find that the Lord will sometimes, indeed often, give you strength against sin, and that you will not always succumb, except it be for a season of particular desertion. From all this you shall see the uprightness of your heart, though you stumble daily in many things. And should the deficiency in your sanctification, then, be any reason why you should be troubled, and robbed of the joy of heart over your happy state, when you truly find in yourself the condition described above with respect to sanctification?
Chapter 12
Of the glory of the covenant partners with respect to their sonship. Verse 6: "And you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with honor and glory."
The glory of a child of God appears: I. From man's wretchedness in himself, from the glory of God his Father, and from a comparison with the great number who have no part in it. II. From the manner of their sonship, which is: 1. Adoption. 2. Betrothal to Christ. 3. Regeneration. III. From many glorious privileges.
He who is now convinced that he has grace and is a true covenant partner must lift up his heart to behold his glorious state, and see how, from the Head, Jesus Christ, honor and glory descend upon his members, so that, remaining in wonder at God's goodness toward man, we may go on to think and to say: "O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is your name! And what is man, that you have crowned him with honor and glory?"
Is not man the most glorious creature upon earth? Indeed, does he not come nearest of all to the angels in glory? Consider his body: God formed it very neatly, well proportioned, pleasant and comely in stature, in complexion, in movement and bearing, and in that beauty there is displayed a glorious majesty, fit to inspire awe. But who shall declare the glory of the soul? The soul is a substance, a being that is not bodily or anything resembling that — every bodily notion must here be set aside — but it is a spirit. We cannot behold this being in its form and manner of existing, but from its effects and workings, its thinking and willing, we may conclude its glorious nature. The soul is immortal: no man can ever touch it to destroy it; all the devils out of hell cannot annihilate it; the angels cannot kill it or make it cease to be; it is subject only to the power of its own Maker, who wills never to destroy it throughout eternity, but has, by an unchangeable ordinance, granted it immortality and everlastingness. It is called a rational soul, on account of its understanding and will, upon which, the more one reflects, the more one cannot but marvel at its brilliance and its capacity to comprehend, to weigh, to judge, to reject, to accept, to hate, to love, so as to set an end before itself and to order the means for reaching it, and so on. And, surpassing all wonder: God has adorned the soul with his own image, and created it in the knowledge of himself, in righteousness and holiness; and after he had created heaven and earth and all that is in them in the most glorious manner, he set this glorious creature, man, as lord and ruler over the whole earth. How little do we consider this wondrous goodness of God! How little do we acknowledge our own excellence!
And when man (alas, how did he ever come to it?) forsook his God and was disobedient to him, and thereby cast himself out of all guardianship and stripped himself of all glory, yet the kindness and long-suffering of God is still so great that he has still left much of that glory in sinful man. Indeed, out of that fallen human race he has taken up a portion, and restored it through his Son, and made it a little lower than the angels, crowned with honor and glory.
This honor and glory consists especially in this: that the LORD has taken them to be his children, and has bestowed upon them a great beauty, riches, and exaltation, and will hereafter glorify them. Let us pause a while upon each of these in quiet reflection, and first upon their sonship.
God has raised wretched men so high that he has made them even his own children. How true it is that formerly they were of their father the devil (John 8:44): "a seed of evildoers, corrupting children" (Isaiah 1:4), "children of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2), "children of the curse" (2 Peter 2:14), "children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3). If such wretches were merely spared destruction, so that they were freed from eternal pain; if, remaining in separation from God, some material goods were still given to such as these — as one throws a dog a piece of bread — that would already be a great blessing for such persons. But to become children of God! That glory surpasses all comprehension.
This is that great promise, 2 Corinthians 6:18: "And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty." Of this John speaks in wonder, 1 John 3:1: "Behold what great love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God."
To be the child of a prince, of a king, is great in the world, but it is not worth a thought compared with this sonship. That such despised, vile, deformed, loathsome, hateful people should become children of God himself — of him who has all glory in himself, who is above all praise, who has made all things, to whom all things belong, whom all creatures, all the kings of the earth, must serve at a single sign, who can do whatever he wills for the glory and salvation of a creature, who is nothing but love and goodness — to be children of such a God! Who can express that glory?
If all men shared in this good fortune, it might seem that its universality would somewhat diminish the wonder and the joy of it, although it ought not to. But God does not do so with all men. The whole multitude goes lost; only a few, in comparison with those who are left in their despised and condemnable state, are raised to this glory. So much the more precious are they, then; so much the more glorious above the whole multitude of other men, above princes, above kings: a godly beggar is a thousand times higher and more glorious than the greatest monarch that ever was.
To this glory also belongs the manner of their sonship; they are children of God, not in name and title only, but in deed and in truth, and that in several respects.
1. God has, out of the whole multitude whom he left in their misery, taken up some out of their condemnable state, and received them as his favored ones, indeed as children. Paul teaches us this, Galatians 4:4-5: "that we might receive the adoption as sons." Romans 8:15: "But you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father."
2. God has betrothed and united them to his own Son in a spiritual marriage of love; therefore the Lord Jesus so often calls them his Bride, Song of Songs 4:8-12: "My sister, my spouse!" And just as in a bodily marriage the two become one flesh, so these too become one, one spirit with the Lord Jesus. 1 Corinthians 6:17: "But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him." And just as the father of the bridegroom becomes, through the marriage, also the father of the bride, so also the Father of the believer becomes theirs, and they become children of God. Psalm 45:10: "Hear, O daughter!" and verse 13: "The king's daughter is all glorious within." For they are members of the Lord Jesus, who is their Head, and so in him children of God. Moreover, he is their Redeemer, and so they have one Father — in respect of which the Lord Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, John 20:17: "Go to my brothers, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and your Father."
3. God has regenerated them by his Holy Spirit; and just as, among men, a child is one who has been begotten by someone, so also a believer is a child of God, because he has spiritual life from God. Of this James speaks, chapter 1:18: "Of his own will he brought us forth." And John 1:12: "But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." So then, the children of God have their spiritual being, and their spiritual life, from God, who by his Spirit regenerates them and makes them alive, and so they are children of God. When a believer reflects not only upon his state as a child of God, but also considers the respects and the manners by and through which he became so, it brings him to a greater assurance of his state; he sees that he is more closely united with God than he had before supposed — this gives him familiarity and greater confidence — and he cannot help but see, in the very manner by which he became a child of God, an unfathomable depth of goodness and wisdom, every bit as much, if not more, than in the state itself. We are truly to be blamed for not meditating more upon this mystery, and that is why we ever see so little excellence in it: each of us ought to amend this.
Consider further also the privileges of a child of God: they are then of a divine descent. Let kings and princes glory in their lineage; let nobles climb, through a long line of noble ancestors, to loftier stocks, and be proud of it. You, children of God! reckon your descent from God — not only through creation, which you have in common with others, but through those relations of sonship recounted above.
Being children of God, they are then of a high and glorious nature: children of eminent fathers may degenerate, and then boast in vain of their ancestors' virtues and titles, but these remain what they are, namely partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). In them there is something lofty, something soaring above the world, above riches, honor, rank — in a word, above everything on earth that bears the name of glorious; they have a princely and willing spirit (Ps. 51:14). In them there is something heavenly, something God-like, so that they have nothing to do with the earth's coarse things; whatever is heavenly, that is what they have their eye upon, that is what they speak of, that is what they seek. With a heavenly wisdom they order their doings.
Being children of God, they are loved by God with a fatherly love. O wondrous thing! that God, who is Love, sets his infinite love to work to love such people as are, in themselves, contemptible and hateful — with a love that does not arise from any loveliness in the object, but that arises out of himself, simply because he wills to love this one and that one. Of this love Holy Scripture speaks most abundantly. Among other places, Jeremiah 31:3: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you." Ephesians 2:4: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us."
Being children of God, God has compassion on all their trials and distresses, with which the Lord is pleased to exercise them; he takes notice of it, he has compassion on them. Psalm 103:13: "As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him." Jeremiah 31:20: "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he not a pleasant child? For since I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still: therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord."
Being children, the Lord will hear their prayers: they may go to him with boldness as to their Father, lay before him their needs, and ask, with a childlike simplicity, sweetness, and confidence, all that they desire; and the Lord will not refuse his children what is conducive to their happiness. Luke 11:13: "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him."
Being children, the Lord watches over them, to ward off all evil from them, to protect them, and to provide them with all good things. Read attentively these two comforting passages, Zechariah 2:5: "For I," says the LORD, "will be a wall of fire all around her, and I will be the glory in her midst." Isaiah 41:8-10: "But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend: you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest regions, and said to you, 'You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you away.' Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God: I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness."
Being children, they are also heirs, as Paul concludes, Romans 8:17: "And if children, then heirs — heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ," of which inheritance we shall speak a little more hereafter.
Now take all this together, and cast your eyes upon the contemptible hatefulness of man, upon the glory and all-sufficiency of God, and upon the narrowness of the number of persons — compared with all the rest — who obtain this grace; upon the manner of this sonship, upon the privileges of a child of God; and pause a while there with holy reflection. Do you not see there an unspeakable happiness, and an inconceivable glory belonging to that man who is adopted as a child of God? Do you not see there a wondrous goodness of God? And have not David, and we with him, reason to cry out: What is man, that you have crowned him with honor and glory? And does your soul not clutch itself, weak believer, seeing the glory of a child of God, and fearing that you are not among that number? And does your heart not go out in longing to be counted among them also? Well then, see, there is Jesus, offering himself to bring you over into that state: go, then, to him, if it is your desire, through him, to attain justification and sanctification, and receive him by faith, as we have taught above, for to such he gives the power to become children of God. And you who become aware that you have received Jesus by faith, and are still doing so daily; you who become aware that you are made a partaker of the Holy Spirit, having received light and life through him, and that you are led by him, and that you find in yourself that childlike disposition of humility, contentment, love to God and his children, submission, willing obedience, fear, trust, and so on — to you I say: rejoice in the Lord, consider your happiness, your firm and glorious state, and glorify God, who is so good to you that he lets himself be called your Father, indeed truly is your Father; glorify him in wonder. And take good heed that you conduct yourself worthily of so high and glorious a state.
Chapter 13
Of the fair comeliness of the covenant partners, with respect to justification.
The LORD, having adopted his elect as children, bestows upon them an excellent beauty. "When I passed by you," says the Lord, Ezekiel 16:8, 14, "I looked upon you, and indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread my wing over you and covered your nakedness; yes, I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you," says the Lord GOD, "and you became mine. Then I washed you with water; yes, I thoroughly washed off your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil. And you were exceedingly beautiful, and your fame went forth among the nations because of your beauty, which I had bestowed on you," says the Lord GOD. The children of God have this beauty, partly in Christ through justification, and partly through sanctification in themselves.
That we may the better see this beauty, we shall give a brief explanation of justification.
The children of God are beautiful through justification. God has set before man a law: perfect and, in every respect, complete conformity to that law is righteousness. This conformity to the law can come about in two ways: namely, through man's own nature and deeds — this is then called the righteousness of the law (Phil. 3:9: "And be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law"); or through another's perfection, bestowed upon man — this is called the righteousness of the Gospel. Of this Paul speaks, Romans 3:21: "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets." Where the righteousness of the law is required, no one is righteous. "Every mouth is stopped, and the whole world becomes guilty before God." Therefore, by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for they have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:19-20, 23). Since, then, no one is righteous by his own righteousness, this must come about through the righteousness of Christ, of which we read, 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For he who knew no sin, he made to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him." Whoever does not have and does not obtain this righteousness remains under guilt, wrath, and contempt, and will be condemned on the day of judgment and of the final sentence; but whoever obtains this righteousness will be justified — not only then, but already now. For God is the Judge of all the earth, who does right (Gen. 18:25). He is righteous (Ps. 11:7). He by no means clears the guilty (Exod. 34:7). His judgment is according to truth; he will render to every man according to his deeds (Rom. 2:2, 6). This righteous God, then, in judging men who have no righteousness, no absolute perfection in every part and degree, condemns them, for there is guilt. But when he judges men who have righteousness in every part, he acquits them, for there is no guilt.
So that justification is such a work of God as Judge, which stands opposed to condemnation, as appears from Romans 8:33-34: "It is God who justifies; who is he who condemns?" See also Proverbs 17:15: "He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD." This justification includes in itself an acquittal from guilt and punishment, an investiture with the required inward state, and the promised inheritance. Since no one among all men is righteous but the elect, so no one else is justified but they. Romans 8:33: "Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies."
These elect are as sinful, ungodly, and condemnable in their nature as we have described above; and being such, they are justified, as appears from Romans 4:5: "But to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly..." But how can this be consistent with the aforesaid righteousness of God? Because they, though condemnable in themselves, obtain a complete righteousness from elsewhere, namely in Christ; this becoming theirs, they are thereby, in accordance with divine justice, justified. The Lord Jesus Christ, as the Head of his body, the Church (Eph. 1:22-23), and as Surety (Heb. 7:22), has borne, in their place, the punishment of their sins, and has thus completely satisfied the righteousness of God — of this we have spoken before. In addition, the Lord Jesus, who in respect of his own person was above the law, placed himself under the law, and perfectly fulfilled that law of which it is written, "the man who does these things shall live by them" — fulfilling it both by the holiness of his nature and of his deeds. And so, by his obedience, he has constituted his own righteous (Rom. 5:19).
This complete satisfaction and holiness must now become the children of God's own, so that by it they are justified; and this becomes theirs, on God's side, as a gift, by imputation. For since the Lord Jesus is the Head of his Church, and all believing members belong to him, the suffering that he suffered, and the holiness that he accomplished, are the suffering and the holiness of the whole body. And since all that the Lord Jesus suffered and did is for the benefit of those for whom he undertook it, in this way God imputes to his elect the satisfaction and the holiness of Jesus Christ, and so justifies them in himself. On their side, the satisfaction and the holiness of Jesus Christ become theirs through faith: through the Gospel it is offered to them; they receive the Jesus who is offered, with all his merits, and clothe themselves with them, and so it becomes theirs. Galatians 3:26-27: "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." So we see how the elect, being in themselves sinful and condemnable, obtain a complete righteousness, with which they can stand before the all-knowing and righteous God after strict examination, and by which they are justified. Therefore the Lord Jesus is called "The LORD our righteousness" (Jer. 23:6), and he is said to have become for us wisdom from God, and righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30). In this respect the Apostle says, Romans 3:23-24: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." It is grace altogether on their part; they have nothing but condemnableness. It is grace by which Jesus is given as a Surety; it is grace that they are justified through the righteousness of Christ, whereas others do not obtain it. But it is a complete righteousness, in respect of the complete satisfaction and holiness of Jesus Christ.
These, then, who have such complete righteousness, God justifies. 1. He does not impute their sins to them, but forgives them. Psalm 32:1-2: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity." He forgives them not some sins, but all, not one excepted. Psalm 103:3: "Who forgives all your iniquities." Jeremiah 33:8: "I will pardon all their iniquities." Not for a short time, only to bring them up again afterward, but forever. Jeremiah 31:34: "I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more." He forgives them so that there is no accusation to be brought against them. Romans 8:33: "Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies." He forgives them so that he releases them from all imprisonment. Romans 6:14: "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace." He forgives them so that he releases them from all punishment. Romans 8:1: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." 2. God imputes righteousness to them. Romans 4:6: "Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness." He treats them not as sinners, but as perfect and beloved children, and gives them free access to himself. Hebrews 10:17: "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." Verse 18: "Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin." Verse 19: "Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus." Verse 22: "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith." He gives them fellowship with himself, 1 John 1:3. He receives them as reconciled children, and appoints them his heirs, Romans 8:17.
Justification is a work of God alone: since man has nothing in himself by which he could be justified, neither can he justify himself by the complete righteousness of Christ; God must justify him. Yet when the Lord justifies a man in his conscience, he does so through faith. Romans 5:1: "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Faith, in the matter of justification, does not merely receive the righteousness of Christ that is presented to it, whereby it comes into a state to be justified, but it also receives the promises, the assurances that God gives to him who believes in Christ, namely: Acts 10:43: "To him all the prophets witness that, through his name, whoever believes in him will receive remission of sins." John 3:36: "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life," and the like. Now when a man receives the Lord Jesus, he turns at once to the promises, whether general or particular, as he finds fitting; he regards them, as they are, as the voice of God, and by faith hears them speaking to him as one who believes — so that the man does not justify himself when he believes, but through faith he hears that God justifies him in his word. As the Holy Spirit also works that faith at that time and in that act, so he confirms that truth upon the soul, and lets the man also taste the blessedness that is in justification; yet this last he does not always do — he works these acts unequally.
This is the soul of Christianity, the sole foundation of the peace of the soul, a strong comfort amid sinful and grievous evils. From this flows boldness toward God, which is a living fountain of sanctification. Herein lies the ground of God's glorification, on account of his unsearchable wisdom, righteousness, power, goodness, mercy, and truth. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for anyone who has a desire for these things, that he continually occupy himself with this point of justification — not merely to receive Jesus once for justification, but to seek, each time over every known transgression, renewed justification concerning that sin, so that the conscience be stilled not through insensibility but continually brought to peace through justification; and that he thereby draw near to God with boldness, and be kindled in love to glorify that God, as such a God as he has shown himself to be, and to serve him out of love in holiness.
But consider this matter as an excellent beauty of the children of God, to display which we have unfolded it. How does a child of God shine in comeliness? It fares with him here as with Joshua, of whom Zechariah 3:3-5 speaks: "Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the Angel. Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, 'Take away the filthy garments from him.' And to him he said, 'See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.' And I said, 'Let them put a clean turban on his head.' So they put a clean turban on his head, and put the garments on him, and the Angel of the LORD stood by." When God does this to someone, and lets him feel and see it in himself, he will best be able to form true thoughts of such a putting off and putting on. Consider: is he not beautiful who is cleansed from all sin, which is the spiritual filthiness, and that through the blood of the Son of God? 1 John 1:7. Whose conscience is cleansed from dead works? Hebrews 9:14. Who, instead of his washed-away filthiness, has an absolute holiness — indeed, who is complete in Christ? Colossians 2:10. Note the excellent description that Paul gives of this beauty, Ephesians 5:26-27: "That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish." So Isaiah describes the same, Isaiah 61:10: "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." The Lord Jesus, beholding his Bride in this beauty, calls her my sister, my friend, my dove, my perfect one, Song of Songs 5:2 and 4:1: "Behold, you are fair, my love; behold, you are fair." Children of God, know this beauty of yours, esteem it, rejoice in it, and use it to the honor of your Bridegroom who has given it to you. Is this not wondrous in your eyes, that God should so adorn a wretched man with such inconceivable beauty? Must one not cry out over it: What is man, that you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with honor and glory? — and let it end in the glorifying of God: LORD, our Lord, how excellent is your name!
Chapter 14
Of the beauty and comeliness of the children of God with respect to sanctification.
The children of God are crowned with honor and glory in respect of sanctification. It is the most beautiful ornament, the most exquisite loveliness that can be found in man. Psalm 93:5: "Holiness adorns your house, O LORD, forever." Psalm 110:3: "Your people shall be most willing in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness." 1 Peter 3:4: "But the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God." The very word "holiness" inspires reverence and awe as soon as it is heard: how glorious, how awesome, then, is he who is truly holy? Holiness does not consist merely in outwardly avoiding evil and doing good; rather, holiness has its seat in the heart, and out of the holy frame of the heart, one who is sanctified hates and flees all sin without exception, and loves and practices every virtue without distinction. But what kind of frame of heart holiness is, and how holy actions flow out of that frame, no one can rightly understand except those who are themselves in such a frame — just as no virtue is rightly known except by the one who practices it. Since holiness is the image of God, how then could anyone know holiness who does not know God? When God has now brought his elect over into the state of children of God, and has placed upon them the perfection of their Head and Surety, he also truly adorns them with his image: they put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. Colossians 3:10: "The new man, who is renewed in knowledge." And Ephesians 4:24: "The new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness." So that holiness is an expression of the purity of God, and a conformity to God. 1 Peter 1:16: "Be holy, for I am holy." We shall now portray a sanctified person in a higher degree, to display this loveliness, so that a small and weak believer need not become discouraged by it.
God gives them a wondrous light in the soul. 1 Peter 2:9: "the eyes of the understanding being enlightened." Ephesians 1:18. The illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 4:6. In this light the soul sees God, his perfections, and among others his exaltedness and glory, that he is worthy in himself, that all rational creatures should set all their contentment, joy, and love upon him, and order themselves in everything according to his will with full compliance. At the same time the soul sees that God has been so good as to will something concerning man, whether to send him some suffering, or to command him something; the sanctified soul needs no further reason to submit to it and to obey it than that it is the will of God. Yet she sees too that the law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good (Rom. 7:12). Indeed, she sees in it an unfathomable wisdom, and it is her delight to look into the law and continually to meditate upon it, and at the same time she is impressed with love and burns with desire to be, in her nature and deeds, conformed to the will of God, as we see in David, Psalm 119:97: "Oh, how I love your law!" Verse 14: "I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, as much as in all riches." Verse 47: "I will delight myself in your commandments, which I love." Verse 54: "Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage." The sanctified soul does not let it remain at this seeing and delighting, but takes up a holy resolve, and lifts up her heart to do that law: Psalm 119:106: "I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep your righteous judgments." Verse 112: "I have inclined my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the very end." All the affections which formerly, like unruly horses, would not listen to reason and will, but ran ahead of them — indeed, deceived reason and will into inclining after them — are restored to their place to obey, and are set in motion by that inward life to have an attraction and a leaning toward the will of God: the whole body becomes serviceable, all the members become instruments of righteousness; so the sanctified soul serves not only to carry out what she wills, but continually furnishes fuel for the nourishment of the spiritual life. See how, by the light, the darkness is driven away; by the life, death is swallowed up; by holiness and beauty, sinful deformity is taken away.
It does not stop here, but the soul, having this frame inwardly, shows in deed that she knows and loves God: she sets herself against all that is sin, both in herself, cleansing herself from all defilement of flesh and of spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God. Leviticus 19:17: "You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him." She gives herself over to the practice of every virtue, and the fruit of the Spirit is in her love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. She adds to her faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love for all (2 Peter 1:5-7). And so she comes forth as a child of the light (Eph. 5): being a child of God, blameless in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom she shines as a light in the world (Phil. 2:15). See how God thus changes and sanctifies his children wholly, within and without, according to the Apostle's wish, 1 Thessalonians 5:23: "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." And although this is as yet altogether only in part, and much of the old man still remains so long as a sanctified person continues in this life, yet the beginnings are very lovely, and adorn a child of God in an excellent manner — just as the stammering, the tottering steps, and the first display of understanding in little children have a very sweet charm.
Holiness is not one virtue, but the radiance of the image of God, being a linking together of many virtues.
A soul that is set by God, in his eternal purpose, to the obtaining of salvation; whom the Lord Jesus has loved, and has washed from her sins in his blood, and upon whom he has laid his glory and holiness; and who is now, by the Holy Spirit of God, regenerated and become spiritually alive — and who now pursues after sanctification — practices many virtues.
She is separated from the world: all that is in the world, namely the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is foreign to her; she does not know it, does not want it, does not seek it. She recoils from it, and likewise, in her eyes, appear all the world's children; she is well content that she has nothing in common with their company, that in her eyes they are contemptible and repulsive, and that she laments their misery. She does not make herself like them, either in dress, or in speech, or in manner of gesture.
She has died and denied herself: she well knows that there is nothing pleasing in herself, and therefore does not desire that others honor, love, fear, or wait upon her, and so forth. If she does not receive such things, she is not sorrowful, nor peevish, nor discouraged, nor troubled, but well content. And if she does receive something of these things, she regards it as a gracious gift from her Lord, and she uses it again for him, for as long as it pleases him to let her keep it. She regards earthly goods merely as travel money for her journey: if she has much, she shares it among her fellow travelers; if she has little, she travels so much the lighter and less encumbered, and she has enough. Her own will is gone; she has no will but that of her Lord, and therefore she is accustomed to bend her own will to another's, insofar as it is not against her Lord's will.
All her contentment is in knowing God, and in keeping him constantly before her eyes, seeking his counsel in all things, fearing him, loving him, being submissive to him in reverence, doing his will with cheerful willingness, trusting in him, having peace, stillness, and joy in him. God is her all, and everything apart from him is to her nothing at all. She has withdrawn herself from all things, and has given herself over to God, with all that she is and all that she has.
She is devout in the church, in her chamber, in her solitude, continually praying, or reading, or singing, or meditating. She is sincere in all her dealings, truthful in her speech, gentle, kind, dignified, humble, cheerful, sensible in her dealings with people, tenderhearted and compassionate toward the afflicted, whom she gladly and often seeks out, and to whom she is of great service; generous toward the poor in wisdom, patient and long-suffering in her cross, earnest and zealous against sin, steadfast, unmoved, always abounding in the work of the Lord. She teaches by her silence; she admonishes, comforts, and stirs up by her speech. She is diligent and faithful in her calling, as given her by God to perform, and since she still has the old man within her, she is on her guard, and willingly engages in the struggle, awaiting in faith and hope the crown of life.
With all these virtuous frames and exercises there blooms a divine clarity, purity, and radiance: this, then, is holiness; this, then, is the glory with which the Lord crowns such wretched men. Now when natural wretchedness and these bestowed glories are compared with one another, and one calls to mind that the high and good God brings about such an exchange, and that through the humbling and exaltation of his Son — who among the children of God will not marvel, and give God the honor and glory, saying: O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is your name! What is man, that you crown him with honor and glory? And at once the desires of a regenerate soul will be stirred, to be adorned likewise with this holy glory and glorious holiness; and therefore to pray, and with quickened powers to apply oneself to the exercise of it, following Paul, who speaks of himself as an example for others, Philippians 3:12-14: "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
Chapter 15
Of the riches and exaltation of the covenant partners in this life, and of their glory after this life.
Verses 7, 8, 9: "You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet: sheep and oxen, all of them, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, that pass through the paths of the seas."
Riches and exaltation shine most splendidly in the eyes of worldly men: all their running and striving is aimed at this; to possess ten years of riches and status, they would lie in hell forever — their very deeds say so. Yet it is but a wretched slavery, for the riches they gain possess them, and the dominion they obtain rules over them. But the children of God are truly rich, are truly exalted: "The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor" (Prov. 12:26); are they not kings? Revelation 5:10: "And have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign as kings on the earth." God has put all things under their feet, and in Christ, to whom all things are subjected — Acts 2:35; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Hebrews 1:13; Hebrews 2:8; Hebrews 10:13 — and also through Christ, before whom even Satan shall be crushed under their feet, Romans 16:20. They rule not only spiritually over devil, world, and flesh, but God has given them the whole earth as a possession.
When God had created Adam, our first father, he set him up as lord over all things: Genesis 1:28: "Fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." When he sinned, he then robbed the human race of all this wealth and dominion, although God, in his goodness, has still allowed man to use much of it. But having now restored his own again through his Son, he grants them, together with him, all things (Rom. 8:32); all things pertaining to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). And he makes them heirs of the world (Rom. 4:13). And gives them, in a word, everything. 1 Corinthians 3:21-22: "All things are yours: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come — all are yours."
But someone might think: the godly, in fact, have the least of the world — how then does everything belong to them, and how do they rule over everything? I answer: does a king not have ownership of, and authority over, his kitchen utensils, even though he does not use them himself, even though he gives no orders concerning them? So it is here too. Is a king's son not rich, even though he does not yet have possession and management in his own person? So also here.
The children of God have ownership of all things; it is theirs. They do not live off another man's land; they do not partake of another man's food and drink; they wear no borrowed clothes; they inhabit no one else's houses; they use no strange animals to draw their carriage, or otherwise serve them; they do not see by a strange sun, nor live by a strange air: no, it is all altogether theirs, it belongs to them, their Father has given it to them. The manner by which it comes to them, blind worldlings consider to be opposed to ownership, but the children of God regard it as the hand of their God, who gives it to them. If others have much goods and great dominion, they have it merely as slaves who carry their master's goods for his children, or as soldiers to protect those who pay them. The ungodly may thank the godly that they live at all, that they have a scrap for which to run and strive; for if there were no godly people in the world, they would already lie in hell. They live off the goods of the godly: God gives it to them through his common goodness, and the godly are none the poorer for it.
Whatever the godly possess, they possess it by the favor of their God, who grants them to enjoy it as their own. All the animals that the ungodly use serve them unwillingly. Romans 8:20. They groan against them; when the ungodly keep beasts, they do them violence: for they were not created to that end, to be used by the ungodly, although God, by permission, and also to display his goodness, lets them do it and gives it to be enjoyed. But whatever the godly use, whether fruits or beasts, it then attains the end for which it originally came into being.
Everything that exists is there to serve them: the sun, moon, and stars, to give them light and to gladden them; the earth with its fullness, to furnish them food and shelter and to give them pleasure — for this the bird is in the air, the fish in the sea, the beast on the land. Even the devil out of hell must serve them, even if it be to sanctify them, 2 Corinthians 12:7. All the toil and labor of the ungodly is, in the end, still for the godly, both as to soul and body. The angels themselves are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation. Hebrews 1:14. See, then, how the children of God are often as having nothing, and yet possessing all things, 2 Corinthians 6:10. And so the Lord Jesus, through his poverty, has made them rich, 2 Corinthians 8:9.
Well then, children of God, regard yourselves as so rich, as so exalted. (Yet know that this is but a foretaste, and is nothing compared with that spiritual estate which you possess and await.) Are you lord of all things? With what a princely spirit ought you to regard all these things as beneath you, and not permit anything — money, food, another person, honor, or anything else — to rule over you and bring you into subjection, diverting your affections toward obeying it. Are you the Lord and owner of the whole wide world, why then be so anxious and so troubled, fearing you shall yet come to want? Why then be so laborious to gather up money and goods, when it is all altogether yours already — the rest, just as much as what has been gathered? Are you lord of all things, then use all things as an owner: use, then, heaven and earth; look, then, upon all that is glorious; hear, then, all that can delight the ear. Let a worldly man call that imagination: you know that theirs is the imagination, and yours the truth. Are you lord of all things? Take heed, then, do not tyrannize, but conduct yourself as a good-natured lord; and whatever God gives you to govern, govern that too accordingly. Are you lord of all things? Then take good heed that you use it all in the right manner; beware, then, of using unrighteous means to come by what is yours, but receive it all from the hand of the Lord, however much or little he is then pleased to give you for your use, since it will be enough for you. An only child is heir to all the goods that are in his wealthy parents' house, but if, against the will and without the knowledge of the parents, he takes for himself what is his, he angers them; so it would be here also. Of every tree in the pleasure-garden of the world eat freely, but beware of that one tree, which is called sin. Be content with the dispensation of your Father, who will give you everything sufficient; say freely, in faith: "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want" (Ps. 23:1). Are you lord of all things? Then do not forget your humble origin and station, so that the proverb may not prove true of you — that when a nobody comes into something, he no longer knows himself — but know always that you are Enosh, a wretched man: consider continually that the Lord, the fountain of heaven and earth, gives it to you out of pure love, and bestows all things on us richly to enjoy. 1 Timothy 6:17. Let it not go out of your thoughts, that these goods have been given to you as purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, and yet not as something principal, but as an addition; and gaze in all this so upon the goodness, love, power, and beneficence of God toward you — toward all his children, indeed toward all men, each in his own kind and manner — that your heart may be filled with a holy wonder, an ardent affection toward the glorifying of that wondrously glorious God.
However glorious all the goods are that God gives his children, as to soul and body, in this life, they are nevertheless not to be compared with the glory that God will give his children after this life — to the contemplation of which we now wish to introduce ourselves.
"O how great is that goodness which you have laid up for those who fear you! Which you have worked for those who trust in you, in the presence of the sons of men!" Psalm 31:19. Who shall tell us anything of that glory? And even if someone were to tell us all about it, who would be able rightly to grasp it? Paul, when he had been caught up into heaven, could relate nothing of it afterward, because it was all so far beyond all comprehension and beyond all words: he calls them "inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter" (2 Cor. 12:4). That inexpressibility ought to awaken in us a thought of a higher glory and blessedness, and should not diminish our estimation of that blessedness. Consider once what Paul says, 1 Corinthians 2:9 (though we also understand this of things present): "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has..." — the best is kept till last: great persons give their children great things. Would it, then, not be something excellent that God has prepared for his beloved children, for his favorites? Romans 8:17: "And if children, then heirs — heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ."
Let us consider the price, and the way, by which salvation is brought to them, and they to this salvation: that is the most precious of all, it is the blood of the Son of God: Hebrews 2:10: "For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." To bring man a trifling happiness, the Son of God would not have humbled himself so deeply. How great, then, must that blessedness be which was purchased at so costly a price? From these considerations one may conclude that the coming blessedness will be inexpressibly great. Would you not dare, then, to venture upon it, believer? Would you not gladly forsake all earthly things for its sake, even if you knew no more of it than this line of reasoning tells you?
I can well imagine that a godly reader is longing to hear a little more of that blessedness, and is expecting that something more of the matter itself will follow. But I must tell you that I cannot satisfy your longing and expectation: after all, it is not words you want, but the matter itself, and that I cannot give you; words, too, are unable to express the matter. Also, a more sanctified person, one who was more deeply initiated into these mysteries, would need to take up the pen for this; I shall not venture into it myself. I only wish to name a few things, in case it should please the Lord that it might be an occasion for some godly reader to gain, in eye and in heart, some sight of that blessedness itself, which I cannot describe. This only I say:
There will be nothing of all that which, in this life, brings unrest to body or soul. No darkness shall bewilder the understanding; no sinfulness shall defile the soul; there shall be no sorrow, no anxiety, no heartache, no grief, no fear over any matter within us or outside us, to torment and trouble the soul. The devils and the world shall be shut out there. There will be no quarreling or bickering there among one another, nor any estrangement.
But then one shall be continually with the Lord; with him whom one now seeks, for whose presence one now weeps, after whom one now yearns, on whom one leans and depends, whom one now loves. With him — the all-sufficient, lovely, faithful, good God, and the Lord Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 4:17: "And thus we shall always be with the Lord." So then comfort one another with these words. Is it not good for the soul to be near the Lord? This was the longing of Paul, Philippians 1:23: "Having a desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better." This is the promise of the sweet Jesus, John 12:26: "Where I am, there my servant will be also; and if anyone serves me, the Father will honor him." This was his prayer for his own, John 17:24: "Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am."
That being together shall be accompanied by seeing God. God now often keeps himself hidden; this is a burden to the soul; a single ray gladdens the soul and revives it, and makes it forget all previous sorrow. The prayer and wish of the quiet soul is: "Show me your glory" (Exod. 33:18). This was David's hope and comfort, Psalm 17:15: "I will behold your face in righteousness." Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we shall see face to face: now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known, 1 Corinthians 13:12. When God, then, near at hand, immediately, and in that manner which God has not now revealed to us, shall reveal to his children his glorious attributes, and shall make the soul feel that he is there for her, then one shall know what it is that we read, Psalm 16:11: "In your presence is fullness of joy."
In that presence and vision there shall be a mutual fellowship in love. God is wholly love; with that infinite love the soul shall be embraced, and shall, being now also transformed into love, love God with that same infinite love in return: it shall be a continual mutual loving. What sweetness, what light, what gladness shall be in that love! 1 Corinthians 13:8: "Love never fails."
Love is holiness; and holiness there being perfect, the soul shall be perfectly holy: perfectly possessing the image of God in nature and in all its deeds. 1 Corinthians 13:10: "But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away." Psalm 17:15: "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness." When the glorified soul shall so perfectly see and enjoy the glory of God and of her Lord Jesus Christ, how shall each one then be continually enraptured in holy wonder, and give to him — the only glorious one, the only God, from whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things — all honor and glory, because he is worthy of it? How blessedly shall the soul lose herself in God, in glorifying him because he is worthy? How shall each one, as a flame of love, unite with all his fellow citizens, and together with that innumerable multitude, falling down before the Lord, sing that eternal Hallelujah!
Chapter 16
Of the duties of the covenant partners.
It is shown that every covenant partner ought to give himself wholly to the practice of these six duties: I. To glorify God for the establishing of the Covenant. II. To rejoice over that great grace and glory into and unto which he has been received in the Covenant, and to live with a cheerful, well-disposed heart accordingly. III. To show himself as a light, in contempt of all that is worldly, and in the pursuit of a heavenly life. IV. To live in love with all true covenant partners. V. To keep peace with all covenant partners. VI. To fight against sin and all the enemies of Christ and his covenant partners.
What manner of person, then, ought every covenant partner to be, in a holy walk! Does it befit a covenant partner of so glorious a covenant to look back to the earth even once, and to have any love, care, or concern for what is earthly? Surely not. Well then, let each one's heart become quick and roused to the practice, among others, of these six duties set before us.
I. This is truly the duty of all covenant partners: that they thoughtfully attend to the loving-kindnesses of the Lord; that they acknowledge all the righteousness, wisdom, holiness, goodness, power, and truth of God; that they glorify and praise God, and, in true thankfulness, bring everything back again to God, just as everything has proceeded from his infinite goodness. This is the end for which God has established this Covenant; this is the blessedness of the covenant partners, here and hereafter. See on this Chapters 2 and 3.
II. The covenant partners must be joyful. It is the duty of covenant partners not merely to rejoice now and then, when the Lord grants their soul some particular encounter, but to accustom themselves to joy, and to spend the whole time of their life with a cheerful, well-disposed, and well-contented heart.
The eunuch, having become a believer, went on his way rejoicing (Acts 8:39). The first church continually ate together with gladness and simplicity of heart (Acts 2:46). To this end also serve the many exhortations to joy: Psalm 100:2: "Serve the LORD with gladness; come before his presence with singing." Philippians 4:4: "Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice." Come now then, godly one, you have endured long enough, and worn out your time in gloominess. Recognize the grace that is in you, however small it may be; consider God's dealings with his children. Do submit yourself to the measure of the dispensation which the Lord ministers to you; do not remain standing at your sins, but continually go with them to the Surety; let neither unbelief nor careless ignorance of living remain in you, nor a covetous desire for grace without submission; accustom yourself, then, to gladness and good cheer. Come, let me take you by the hand and lead you toward it; do not resist, then.
1. This gloominess and languishing is harmful on every side, and does not accord with your state. It is a dishonor to God: for besides that it proceeds from a lack of faith, and that it strengthens unbelief the more, it also hinders you from glorifying and thanking God; and it is apt to arouse in others an ill opinion of God, as though he were but a barren wilderness to his own, and always dealt harshly with them, and gave no occasion for any refreshment and gladness. It is apt to frighten natural men away from godliness: for nature takes no delight in sorrow, and cannot imagine that blessedness should consist in sorrow. It is very harmful to the melancholy person themselves; for those who accustom themselves to sorrow (though to mourn over sins for a proper time, measure, and manner is necessary) waste away the strength of their body, and often bring on an ill health which they retain their whole life; and that ailment then in turn becomes a cause of grief and melancholy, and the grief in turn increases the ailment. Indeed, when one gives way to grief, one can go so far that one takes pleasure in nothing but mourning and eating one's own heart; one becomes fit for nothing — neither to believe, nor to overcome sin, nor to do good, nor to be an example to others; one renders oneself unfit to be set right and strengthened by ordinary means: a soul bowed down — who shall lift it up? Therefore, save yourself like a hero. It is, indeed, easiest to give oneself over to sorrow, like a man who is fainting, to simply sink down into it, but the damage is beyond reckoning.
2. Covenant partners have right and reason for gladness. Let strangers to this Covenant be troubled, terrified, and mourn, but you who are delivered from devil, hell, and wrath; you who have God as a reconciled God and as your portion; you who are partakers, through Jesus Christ, of justification, sanctification, and everlasting glorification, and shall be — what reason for sorrow should there be for you? What more do you desire in order to be glad? You say: to enjoy all these goods now, actually and powerfully. I answer: well, you shall have that too — it is promised to you, and that by the true God. If someone is made heir to a great inheritance, and the testator dies leaving it to him, will he not be glad, even though he does not see the treasures before his eyes, since he has the right to them, and it cannot now be taken from him? So also: all those blessings that are promised and bequeathed to you — the Testator has died to secure it — the inheritance is yours; be glad then. Psalm 65:4: "Blessed is the man you choose, and cause to approach you, that he may dwell in your courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, of your holy temple." Psalm 97:11-12: "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the LORD, you righteous, and give thanks."
3. God takes pleasure in the joy of his children; he indeed wills that they should delight themselves; a sober cheerfulness is pleasing to him, he is present with such. Psalm 22:3: "You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel." Isaiah 64:5: "You meet him who rejoices." If you desire the friendly meeting of God, if you desire the sweet presence of the God of your gladness and rejoicing, then accustom yourself to cheerfulness in him through faith.
4. Ah, but dear friend, what would you do in heaven, if you have no delight in gladness? In heaven no one weeps, there is nothing but gladness: God is gladness, the angels are never sorrowful. The kingdom of God is peace and joy, Romans 14:17. Blessedness is called joy, Matthew 25:21: "Enter into the joy of your Lord." Well then, begin here your walk in heaven, and do heavenly work. Or is gladness so heavy and unpalatable a thing that we should need many arguments to persuade us to rejoice? Nature is indeed inclined to it, every man is indeed bent on seeking gladness — and now that you have real cause for gladness, would you still remain just as sorrowful?
5. And should you not be glad? For the joy of the LORD is your strength, Nehemiah 8:10. There is still much to be done for you: there is still a world for you to overcome, there is still a devil to fight, there is still the flesh to be put to death, there is still need in you for the ornament of faith, hope, love, there are still other people to be converted. You yourself still need to be the splendor and glory of the church; it should be known that you have been there. Now all this is not to be accomplished by languishing and mourning: a melancholy person is a breeding-nest of every kind of sinfulness; the flesh gains power, the devil has great advantage over such a one, grace is neglected, and carelessly left in oblivion. But joy is strength. A cheerful person forestalls a multitude of temptations, since they have no occasion to arise; and even if they do arise, a cheerful person can quickly beat them back, and overcome them with little effort. A good-humored, cheerful person very readily despises earthly things; the exercise of the virtues is pleasant to him, and it becomes him well, and he is fit to comfort others, and to lead them to a well-disposed cheerfulness. He is an ornament of the Church, and an instrument for the glorifying of God.
Well then, come, rejoice in the LORD, and be glad, you righteous, and sing joyfully, all you who are upright in heart (Ps. 32:11). Ah, but do not remain fixed upon your deficiency; do not depend so much upon feeling, but rejoice through faith. 1 Peter 1:8: "Whom having not seen you love; in whom, though now you do not see him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory."
But take good heed that you do not mistake the lightness and cheerfulness of your natural temperament for this spiritual joy, and that you do not, on that basis, give yourself the liberty to be vain, wanton, and unrestrained in words, gestures, and deeds; that displeases God, and corrupts the soul of such a cheerful person, and also of those who keep company with such. Take good heed also, that your corrupt nature does not take occasion from true spiritual joy to break out into unruliness and looseness. Take heed also, that on occasion of gladness you do not become careless in watching against the devil and the flesh, who will not fail to seize such an opportunity. Take heed too, that gladness does not keep you from the sight of your own nothingness and sinfulness in yourself. Take heed that gladness does not make you irreverent toward the Lord, and that your awe of him is not diminished by the greater familiarity which the soul has with God in gladness; but let gladness always make you live thoughtfully, quietly, carefully, self-possessed, and even-tempered — then our strength will be in everything.
We have spoken here to those who perceive some measure of grace in themselves. As for those who doubt their state, who cannot rightly be joyful, we exhort them to make right use of the Covenant of Grace and of the Lord Jesus, willingly to receive him, and to give themselves over to him, and to believe the promises made to such as they, and to venture upon these, so as thus to come to gladness.
III. The covenant partners must live holily.
It is the duty of covenant partners to conduct themselves, in accordance with their glorious state, in holiness of life. Incline, then, your ears, and let my exhortation enter into your hearts.
1. You may not live as other men live who are not covenant partners, and as you formerly lived; God now demands, God now expects something different from you. Hear this exhortation, Ephesians 4:1: "I therefore beg you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called." Philippians 1:27: "Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ." Colossians 1:10: "That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work." 1 Thessalonians 4:1: "Furthermore then, brethren, we urge and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you would abound more and more." Verse 3: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification." Well then, covenant partners, let your heart be lifted up in the ways of the Lord, like Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 17:6. "Hearken, O daughter, consider and incline your ear: forget also your own people and your father's house; so the king will greatly desire your beauty; because he is your Lord, worship him." Psalm 45:10-11. Come then, walk as children of light, Ephesians 5:8.
2. Consider your state attentively, and be thereby awakened to a holy walk. Are you not a chosen generation? 1 Peter 2:9. From eternity the Lord has known you, has separated you from all other men, and has ordained you to be his favored ones, so that out of all other men you alone should be his own possession; and he has appointed you to the obtaining of salvation, 1 Thessalonians 5:9. "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love," Ephesians 1:4. Should not such a gracious and glorious setting-apart — and that in order that we should be holy — leave its impression upon our hearts, to lead a set-apart, holy life? Go on with your thoughts, and see how the Lord leaves other men to remain without Christ, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world; and that he has chosen you, though by nature you were just like the rest, and has appointed that you should go and bear fruit (John 15:16). That he has called you with a holy calling (2 Tim. 1:9). And that he has delivered you from the power of darkness, and translated you into the kingdom of the Son of his love (Col. 1:13). So that you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph. 2:19). Shall we, then, not be a people that dwells alone? Shall our walk, then, not be distinguished from the walk of natural men! Shall we, then, not show ourselves to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation, 1 Peter 2:9, so that all who see us may know us, that we are a seed that the LORD has blessed, Isaiah 61:9? When Abraham was called and departed out of Ur of the Chaldeans, he did not wish to go back there, nor did he wish that his seed, after his death, should be brought back there again. When Israel was called and brought out of Egypt, they were not to turn back there again. So also with me: we have been called out of the world, and have departed from it — how then should we turn back there again?
Go on further with your thoughts, and consider the special relation that you have with God, and with the Lord Jesus, and be thereby made lively to the denial of all things, and to a zealous practice of love, and of whatever love requires.
Between you and Christ there is, after all, a union — you are, after all, one spirit with him, 1 Corinthians 6:17. You are, after all, like a graft in him, grafted as into an olive tree, and so made partaker of his life and of his nature, Romans 11:17. Shall not, then, that same life of Jesus be manifest in us? And shall we then not also walk, just as he walked?
You are, after all, the Bride of the Lord Jesus, so called earlier in the Song of Songs. Will a bride not adorn herself so as to be pleasing and comely to her bridegroom? Shall you, then, not do the same for the Lord Jesus? Shall we not, with Paul, be very desirous, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to him? 2 Corinthians 5:9. And now, what indeed is the ornament in which Jesus takes delight? It is holiness. Psalm 93:5: "Holiness adorns your house, O LORD, forever."
In this respect the Lord Jesus says, Song of Songs 7:1: How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! Now then, let Jesus see your contempt for the world, your humility, your love, your trust, and your sweet leaning upon him, that he may take delight in it.
You are maidens who are indeed in love with the Lord Jesus. Song of Songs 1:3: Therefore do the virgins love you. Well then, have a maidenly heart; keep yourselves pure and unspotted from the world; have doves' eyes; let all your love go out to Jesus alone, that he may see it and take delight in you.
You bear the name, and indeed are, children of God. Philippians 2:15: Children of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. Now then, you do not belong here, but in the other world — or rather, your home is in Heaven; there you are children. Shall not a child side with his Father, and set himself against his Father's enemies? Shall not a child honor, fear, and love his Father, serve him, and unite himself wholly with his Father's will — in manner, in dress, in company? Shall not the heart of a child have its delight and pleasure in its Father's house? Well then, since you are children of God, conduct yourselves as children, and let everyone see from your walk that you are a stranger on earth and belong at home in Heaven, that God is your Father and you are children of God.
3. Consider what sin and the world are, that you may thereby be the more readily drawn away from them. Since man has been estranged from God by sin, he seeks his satisfaction in the visible, and lets the invisible God go; this nature — the old Adam — still remains in the regenerate, and here one must be especially watchful. You, then, children of God, who have once again set your satisfaction in God and seek it there, what business do you still have with the world and all that is in it? Only look it all over once at its very finest — what is it all? Solomon, speaking from experience and by the Spirit of God, says, Ecclesiastes 1:2: Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. How many gape after, chase after, some thing — one gets it, another is left behind having pursued it in vain. How many times have you too let your desires run after this or that, imagining that it would bring you some satisfaction; how often did it run away as fast as you ran after it, so that you could not overtake it, but wasted time and effort in vain.
And when you did obtain it, how often did you find that you had embraced a thornbush that pricked you, or a nettle-bush that stung you, or a handful of rotten apples with which you only soiled yourself, so that you were altogether ashamed and embarrassed by it — or that it was but a handful of flies, which fly away the moment you open your hand.
And besides that, have you not experienced long enough that all this chasing, coveting, and seeking after the things that are on earth — however fair a pretense it wore — troubled your soul and made it restless, robbed you of your free life, of the quiet peace of conscience; that it took from you the spiritual sight of God and communion with God, hindered you in earnest and familiar prayer, and what a hindrance it added to the practice of the virtues? Will you then still remain stubborn, and love your own grief and harm?
Have you not experienced long enough how attractive the world becomes the moment one indulges it even a little, what a harmful strength the flesh gains from it, and how much labor it costs before one can come to a living, earnest, complete release from it — how quickly one is drawn away again, how hard it is to forget that sweet taste the flesh had in it? Will you not then be careful that the world bewitch you no more?
And besides all this, it is indeed idolatry; it is indeed a dreadful dishonor to God — as if there were still something in the creature that could be set up for one's satisfaction, as if the all-sufficient God were not sufficient enough for the refreshment of the soul, as if one needed to have something else besides God. Would God not be provoked at this? Would he not withhold his grace? Would he not punish such adulterous children? Would he not let them find out for themselves what it is to run after broken cisterns?
Above all earthly things, profit and pleasure stand out. But dear reader, what are these things when you look at them in themselves?
The pleasure of sight, of smell, of taste, of unclean titillations — it all lasts but a moment; it cries aloud, "It is not to be found in me!" Why do you let your eyes run after that which is not? The soul remains empty — what am I saying, empty? Filled with unrest and earthly filth, which befits no maiden.
What, after all, are the riches of the world? Do they make their possessor any more comely, more beautiful, more excellent in himself? With cares they are generally acquired, even when everything is gained justly. With worry they are kept. With grief unstable riches make themselves wings. They generally give their possessor care, insatiable desire, pride, and ruin: many would be good people were they not rich. How many, with a lump of gold or silver hung about their neck like a millstone, have sunk into the eternal abyss.
Above all, vain glory is an abomination, at which a covenant partner must shudder, and which he must, like one shakes a burning coal off his garment, cast away in haste. What honor do you have, worthless sinner, save the honor of your Head — with his honor you must clothe and content yourself; but to aim quietly at your own honor, praise, applause, esteem, or love, ending in yourself, with your heart set on it in all your doing and leaving undone, is to rob God of what is his, is to make a god of yourself, spoils all your good deeds, grieves your soul, hinders your humility, withholds God's blessings from you. And tell me, what good has it ever done you? Is your soul in itself any wiser, more learned, more godly because of it? Is it so great a thing that a sheaf, a tree, a clod of earth, a sinner, a gallows-carrion, hell's bait, and a slave of the devil, must bow before you, worship you, marvel at you, and speak well of you? Or that some godly person makes an idol of you, defiling his own soul, so that the love he ought to have bestowed on Jesus alone, and the heart that should belong to Christ alone, is diverted from him to you? What are you profited by robbing Christ and corrupting his children? Seeing you are but a withered bladder, do you take such pleasure in being puffed up with wind and inflating yourself with pride, by which you make yourself loathsome in the eyes of God, the holy angels, and sensible godly people, and which will presently turn to your own ridicule and to the shame of your own face before God and men? Consider, then, all these glorious things — and be stirred up to walk before the face of God.
Now you have entered into a covenant with that God; now you have nothing else to do but to look upon him: and if you do this, you shall find that this sight will change you and make you shine, just as Moses' face shone after he had spoken with God on the mountain. Thus Paul speaks of it, 2 Corinthians 3:18: And we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.
God has commanded you to be holy — it is his command: Be holy. Psalm 119:4: Lord, you have commanded that we should keep your precepts diligently. Is it not enough to have lived after your own will? Do you not see that it befits a creature to unite its will with the will of God, that this is its very salvation? Do you not see what a bold undertaking and what an abomination it is, that a creature who is bound to God by so many ties — a covenant partner — should not only neglect to do the will and command of his God, but even set himself against it and do the contrary in God's own presence and sight? Well then, let it be enough that you have been disobedient, have turned your heart and ear away from the law, and with an unweaned soul have gratified your own desire, and have not listened to the voice of God in your conscience. The time, and God's dealings with you, now call for something else: awake, then! Do you have no desire to praise the name of the Lord? Do you then take no delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man? Well then, look upon your Sovereign, look upon his will and command, look upon yourself, and live accordingly as obedient children.
4. The holy life of covenant partners tends to the glorification of God. Matthew 5:16: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. John 15:8: Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit. It is the honor of a father that his household is well-mannered, and that his children follow their father's virtues. So it is here too. God is dishonored by all men; only his children has he formed that they might declare his praise. Isaiah 43:21. These are, in the eye of the whole world, a city on a hill, a light on a lampstand, Isaiah 61:3. Note this well, then: if you now neglect to live holily and to show forth your spiritual nature by a virtuous life, or if you make yourself like the world, so that nothing excellent can be discerned in you above it, then you are not to the honor of God but to his dishonor, and the holy name of God will be blasphemed because of you; but if you show yourself, in deed and truth, to be a sanctified person — despising honor, riches, and sinful pleasures, and living holily, righteously, temperately, humbly, meekly, and kindly in the love and fear of God — then you shall have this happiness, that God is glorified through you. Let this be the exaltation of God in your soul, that you proclaim the virtues of him who has called you. Let it be, then, that you live as a light in the darkness, and in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, with the impression of glorifying God thereby, and so he will glorify you.
5. The holiness of covenant partners is very necessary for other people. It is a true proverb: rules teach, but examples draw. It cannot be told what a holy life can accomplish: let someone be the most eloquent, the most powerful, and the most gifted teacher in the world — if holiness is absent from his life, all his gifts are but harmful; but a teacher who lives holily preaches into the hearts of the godly. So it is also with every covenant partner.
Now then, have you not for long enough, by your careless and scarcely more than merely civil life, kept people in blindness and rocked them to sleep, as if there were no other holiness than that by which they — coming close to your own level in their lives — were content with themselves, and so remained unconverted? Oh, if many had not been offended by you — seeing you in places where sinners frequent, seeing you laugh and jest as sinners do, seeing you display and flaunt as sinners do, seeing you indulge in vanity as sinners do, seeing in you no more spirit and life, fear of God, light, purity, love, humility, gravity, heavenly-mindedness, renunciation of worldly things, and self-denial than in sinners! They might perhaps have been convinced, if you had truly, without pretense, been spiritual in your whole conduct; they would have seen that their own walk was not right, that being spiritual meant something else. This the apostle Peter shows, 1 Peter 3:1: That if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conduct of the wives.
One godly person watches another far more than one would think: if those who are esteemed great Christians display little of the Spirit in their conduct, and incline somewhat toward the world in their manner of life, others readily follow them too, and so at last the pattern of holiness is lost from view, and one becomes very conformed to the world, which then creeps steadily forward, and so the Church loses her glory and splendor. But when both great and small Christians live a life detached and drawn away from the world and caught up into heaven, and display that spirituality without pretense in their words and deeds, it produces powerful convictions, shame, awakenings — a presence that pierces through heart and reins, teaching the imagination, even in their absence, as though they were present; and everywhere they have been, they leave behind a footprint of holiness. The small are teachers of the great, the great are examples to the small, and so the Church gains glory and splendor, reverence and loveliness, and so Jerusalem becomes a praise on the earth, and an honor to Christ. Let everyone, then, begin to live as a covenant partner of so holy a covenant, and we shall see that one will kindle another, just as one candle lights another.
6. God promises glorious rewards for holiness. Although the glorification of God is the ultimate aim, and the motions that spring from it are more excellent and higher, a Christian must also let himself be moved by the promises which God makes him upon such or such a matter. What God is pleased to promise must be pleasing to us; the way God uses to stir us up, that way we too must let ourselves be led into, and we shall find and experience that, with Moses, to have regard for the reward of the recompense is a very sweet, submissive, and righteous, childlike thing. It is sad that so little is practiced of this. God, then, promises recompense upon holiness — yet out of grace, as a father does for his child. Psalm 19:11: In keeping of them there is great reward. And if anyone asks, how great? I answer: That which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9. Not only will he give them this after this life, but he will also give them some portion of it here already. The reward which the Lord will give to those who practice holiness is —
a. Peace of conscience. Psalm 119:165: Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing shall offend them. Holiness is the well-trodden path. Psalm 84 — whoever walks in it finds a wondrous peace in the mind; a peace of God that passes all understanding, Philippians 4:7.
b. Great gladness and delight belong to those who practice holiness. Proverbs 21:15: It is joy to the just to do judgment. Psalm 119:14: I rejoice in the way of your testimonies, as much as in all riches. Verse 16: I will delight myself in your statutes. Verse 24: Your statutes have been my songs. Verse 111: They are the rejoicing of my heart. In sin there is nothing but sorrow, but in holiness there is nothing but joy. It is the kingdom of God in the soul. It is the foretaste of heaven. Whoever wants to live joyfully, let him strive after holiness.
c. God promises to those who live holily that he will meet them, and grant them nearness to him and revelation of himself; see Isaiah 64:5: You meet him who rejoices, and works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways. Remarkable is the promise of John 14:21: He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me: and he who loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will manifest myself to him. What more can a believer desire, what else does he long for? And see, this is what God promises to those who keep his commandments. So also Matthew 5:8: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. He who does not apply himself to holiness has no cause to complain that he is so much in the dark and sees so little of God; whoever delights in this must apply himself to holiness, and such will experience these promises fulfilled in themselves.
d. God promises them increase and growth in sanctification. John 15:2: Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bring forth more fruit. A godly person cannot live without sanctification; want of holiness is to him a continual dying, but to grow like well-fed calves, like a palm tree, and like a cedar of Lebanon — that is the longing, the joy of the soul. So indeed it is also with you, is it not, godly reader? Well then, come alive to this, have regard to the reward, take delight in it, and let yourself be moved by the growth that will surely be given you, to apply yourself to sanctification. The beginning is the hardest; afterward it will grow sweeter and easier.
e. God promises those who here deny themselves, despise the world, love and obey God, confess Christ, and so live strong in godliness, eternal salvation. 1 Timothy 4:6: Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. Matthew 25:34-35: Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. Eternal salvation is everything — a blessed end without end! A light without darkness, a life without death, a gladness without sorrow, a holiness without filth! You, then, children of God, this is the end God promises you, and he wishes to lead you there along that royal, beautiful, glorious road of holiness: come then, why do you sit still, why do you waste away in sluggishness, why do you sink down into discouragement? Arise, go forth, forget what is behind, reach forward to what is ahead, and so lay hold on eternal life.
Thus we have sought to stir you up unto salvation; yet it is the Lord who works this in us. May he who gives both the willing and the working to others give it also to you, reader.
IV. The covenant partners must live together in love, one toward another.
Those who are truly covenant partners have a mutual regard for one another, and must bear themselves toward one another as befits such close bonds — that is, in true spiritual love and peace, from which the other reciprocal duties will naturally follow. If we have anything to complain of, it is the lack of these two virtues — not only in the world at large, in which these days are full of confusion, hatred, and discord because of the many worldly people who have crowded into Christ's household, and there display and carry out their own nature and their master's will; but especially we have to complain of the truly regenerate, that they let themselves be so swept along by others, and, without noticing whom they follow, tread in worldly footsteps, and thereby carry on their work — heedlessly — against themselves, against their brethren, indeed against the Lord Christ himself. What, then, may be the causes of this lovelessness and estrangement, indeed opposition, among the truly godly? — so that it may be uncovered to each in himself and amended. I answer:
1. Lack of faith and liveliness. These have so much to do with themselves — living in discouragement and sluggishness because of the power of sin and weak faith — that they can scarcely spare any regard for another; and they do not show the love they in fact have for others; and so they kindle neither themselves nor others — indeed, beginners, who are usually full of simple love, are checked in their love by this. Even where in some this arises from fear of seeking themselves, it is nevertheless a defect in them, and it is harmful to the Church in general.
3. Many sin and show their corrupt nature in the presence of others, and afterward show no repentance for it; by this the esteem in which they are held as children of God is diminished, and love toward them grows cooler.
4. One is sometimes deceived by hypocrites, whom one had loved as godly, and who afterward show that they were not godly at all; because of this, one becomes more guarded, so as not to be deceived again — not considering that it is better to have loved a hundred hypocrites as though they were godly, than to have withheld love from one true child of God.
5. Lovelessness and discord also rest upon differences of opinion. One must distinguish between the error and the one who errs.
One must hate the error — even the very first step that departs from the truth. Truth is a pledge which God has entrusted to the Church and to every member of it. Whoever, then, wishes to be faithful to God must not say, "It is but a small matter, nothing depends on it, it does not touch the foundation, one can well be saved holding this view or that." No — a small truth was entrusted to us just as much as a great one, and a small error is the beginning of many, and greater, errors, and the end of all errors is less spirituality, or sinfulness of life, even though this is not seen at first. Let everyone love the truth down to the very least point, and guard it as a pledge entrusted to him, and defend it.
The one who errs is either quiet, teachable, and pliable, or he pushes his error forward with force or cunning. The latter causes divisions, has haughtiness of heart, bitterness, and contempt for others who do not share his opinion. With such a one a lover of truth may not associate familiarly, but must resist such conduct, and bear with it only until the error spreads further; yet one must show by one's demeanor that one merely bears with him, and that one does not love his errors and his conduct, and withdraw from him more than before, so as to put him to shame, and so as to give no occasion to others of being drawn into the errors through familiar association. But if the one who errs is quiet in himself, teachable and pliable — even though he cannot grasp this or that truth, and even holds mistaken thoughts — then one must not withhold love, or the show of love, from him, but rather have compassion on him, pray for him, and bear with him as with someone weak. Many err in this matter, and so they damage love on every side. Some wish to show equally great love and familiarity to every kind of erring person; others will bear with no one who thinks differently. From this comes lovelessness. But you, then, love both truth and peace; have wisdom that is first pure, then peaceable. Learn to make distinctions, so that neither truth nor love is damaged.
In seeking to move ourselves to love, it is necessary that we show the ground of true, spiritual, and lasting love. The ground of spiritual love toward the godly is not because the godly honor us, love us, have compassion on us, and do us good. Nor because their tempers agree well with ours, and like delights in like. Nor because the godly have an agreeable nature, are humble, submissive, accommodating, and pleasant of speech. Nor because of their civil modesty, dignity, wisdom, helpfulness, or faithfulness. Nor because they belong to our own party, share our views, and pull the same rope with us. For all these things a temporary believer, even a merely natural man, may well love the godly for, and after a short while hate and persecute the very same people.
But the godly, although the aforementioned things may stir up their love, nevertheless have other grounds for their love, namely,
1. Because the godly are loved by God. 1 John 5:1: Everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who is begotten of him. As long as one considers someone to be still outside the state of grace and still in his natural condition, brotherly love cannot go out to him — though the love of goodwill must extend to all people — but when one sees signs of adoption in someone, love goes out to such a one. If someone would love steadfastly, he must regard the godly as beloved of God from eternity, as redeemed by the blood of Christ, as a child of God, and as an heir of eternal salvation; as long as that regard remains, love will remain, and the more clearly one perceives the love of God and Christ toward such a one, the stronger and more moving will one's love toward him become.
2. The second ground of spiritual love is love to God — the spiritual life, the image of God in the godly. 2 John 1:2: For the truth's sake, which dwells in us, and shall be with us for ever.
Covenant partners, love one another — and that not sluggishly, but fervently. For:
1. This is the command of your God and Father, you covenant partners! God wills that his children and household should excel especially in this, and that by this virtue all who are outside might be moved to wonder, and all who are within might find comfort and support. See, among many other places, these few: Hebrews 13:1: Let brotherly love continue. 1 Peter 1:22: Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently. 1 John 4:7: Beloved, let us love one another. If we have now received God as our God, shall his word not carry all weight with us? Now then, your God, your Father, commands you to love his household and children; well then, do it — and do it gladly.
2. God loves you, and with that same love he also loves your brothers and sisters. 1 John 4:11: Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. Ephesians 5:2: Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us. Shall the Most Holy love us who are the filthiest, shall the Most Glorious love us who are the most despised, shall God, who is love itself and the most lovable of all, love us who are hateful — and love both you and those others whom he made objects of your love — and would you not love those whom God loves? Should we not let ourselves be moved to love those toward whom God has set forth his own love for us as our very motive to love them?
3. And do not even the ungodly and the merely natural love one another? Indeed, even the beasts love one another — and shall we, who have the Spirit of Christ, do less? If you desire holiness, if you desire that the Church be an ornament of the earth, if you would delight to see the Church held in awe, and that you and other believers bear a recognizable likeness of Christ, then take delight in loving one another: indeed, in this you shall come nearest of all to God, who is love.
5. Love is very powerful to stir up love in others: the unregenerate, who see the pure and heartfelt love of the godly toward one another, are thereby not only convinced of their own wretched state, but also come to desire such a life, and are drawn to join themselves to the godly, that they might be taught and led by them. And when small, or otherwise love-slackened, Christians see love shining and flaming in others, it kindles their cold hearts, so that they too begin to burn, and so love is carried forward and propagated through the whole congregation.
Come then, covenant partners: God wills that you love one another; God loves you and others. You are children of one household; from others you can expect only hatred and enmity. Mutual love comforts, gives life, is your ornament, and kindles both others and yourselves. Oh, I beg you, do love one another; be of one heart and one soul, as was the congregation, Acts 4:32. Strive to become like the church of Thessalonica, of which the apostle says, 1 Thessalonians 4:9: But as touching brotherly love you need not that I write unto you: for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another. Have compassion when it goes ill with anyone in soul or body; comfort one another as you are able; serve one another; share with one another; hold together; bear with one another's weaknesses; let each be assured of your true love; let others see your love, and let that word be heard from others concerning you: "Behold, how they love one another!" And you will find that this will kindle love in others, and will bless you with much comfort and joy.
V. The covenant partners must live together in peace, one toward another.
Where love fills the heart, there peace will flow out. Discord without is a sign of a lack of love within; and as the two cannot be separated, so both belong together in covenant partners. To refrain from quarreling is not yet peace; peace requires bond, the union of minds, springing from sanctified love. Therefore peace is called a bond, Ephesians 4:3: Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Let peace be joined with truth and holiness — it is sin to give up either of these for the sake of keeping peace; it is rather a virtue to fight for them, and to prefer having the hatred and enmity of everyone in the world than to lose truth or holiness. The Lord Jesus is at once Melchizedek and the King of peace, Hebrews 7:2. Love truth and peace, Zechariah 8:19. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other, Psalm 85:10. Follow peace... and holiness, Hebrews 12:14.
Oh, that the God of peace would give us his peace in these confused days, and that the divided-heartedness among God's children — the envy, the harshness, the estrangement, the aversion, the spitefulness — might be taken away, and a tender love come in its place, before we are broken apart! Let each begin with himself, and not wait for another to go first. Do let yourselves be constrained to peace. For:
1. Discord is indeed a work of darkness, Romans 13:12-13. Shall a child of light engage in that work? Discord hinders prayer, 1 Peter 3:7 — far be that from earnest worshippers. And do you not know that by strife and divisions you cause the name of God to be blasphemed by those who are without and within, that you grieve the godly and make God sigh, that you spoil the edification of the congregation, hinder the conversion of the unconverted, and turn away the blessing of God from the congregation, so that many children of God wander about in dryness and deadness? Does it not concern you who you are? Is there then no more love left for the honor of Zion and the welfare of her children? Do you dare go on causing such misery? Oh, please — let it be enough. Do stop.
2. How could you, how would you dare, neglect to do the command of your Father, who commands you so often and so movingly to live in peace? Do bow your heart to his command, and consider his reasons. Romans 12:18: If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men. 2 Corinthians 13:11: Be of one mind, live in peace: and the God of love and peace shall be with you. Mark 9:50: Have peace one with another. 1 Thessalonians 5:13: Be at peace among yourselves.
3. Consider, then, all those persons and things toward which you have any relation or reciprocal bond, and see whether your heart is not stirred up to peace.
God, who is your Father, is a God of peace, Romans 16. Out of pure love he has, when we through our sins had become his enemies, reconciled and made peace with us through the death of his Son, Romans 5:10. Shall God do so much to make peace with us and to give us peace in our conscience — and shall we not, for his sake, seek peace? How could you dare, with an unpeaceable heart, with an unpeaceable tongue, with hands that wield unpeaceable pens, how could you dare so to approach God? As for the Lord Jesus, your Bridegroom, your beloved, and all your delight, is he not the Prince of Peace? Isaiah 9.
Shall he who gave himself up to all that shameful and bitter misery, that by the blood of his cross he might make peace, Colossians 1:20 — that he might be our peace, and might make and reconcile all his children into one with one another, Ephesians 2:14-15 — shall we then keep no peace among ourselves?
Is not the Church our mother — Shulammite, the peaceable one? Song of Songs 6. And are not our brothers and sisters, our fellow household members, peaceable? Matthew 5:9. Is not the gospel by which we have been converted a gospel of peace? Ephesians 6:15.
We all, indeed, have been baptized by one Spirit into one body, and have all been made to drink of one Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12:13. How unbecoming it would be, that someone, standing in all these relations — each of which powerfully urges the soul toward peace — should nevertheless live in discord! How intolerable, how dreadful such a thing would be! Well then, let yourselves be moved to spend the rest of your time with a peaceable heart, living in peace with your fellow covenant partners.
4. Challenge me to name yet another such motive — for if the foregoing do not persuade you, none will move me to try further. Consider the glorious promises which God makes to the peaceable, and which he will surely also give: Matthew 5:9: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. This the Lord Jesus says; this sweet voice comes from his gracious lips, and from the heart of him who is the Amen, the faithful witness. He who calls the peaceable blessed also promises them — if anyone has some complaint against another: even as Christ forgave you, so also do you. Give no one occasion for offense, and if you have given it, do not be ashamed to remove it by confession and satisfaction. Let Abigail be an example to you, 1 Samuel 25.
3. Do yield, and accommodate yourself in all things that are not against the will of God, to others, following the example of Abraham, Genesis 13:8-9: And let there be no strife, I pray you, between me and you... If you will take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.
1. Come then, covenant partners: seek peace, and pursue it, Psalm 34:14. Do so both when it does not come to meet you and when it flees from you. So you will show that you are a covenant partner of the covenant of peace, Isaiah 54:10. And God will not withhold from you the promised blessing to the peaceable.
The Lord, having united his children by his Holy Spirit — with himself, and with one another — in one covenant, wills to lead them, all the while fighting, to their appointed glory; and this way is most conducive to the glory of God, and suits covenant partners best of all. To this end the Lord has allowed many enemies to remain, both within them and outside them, in order to train them in the fight, and through victory to bring them to the crown. Therefore all covenant partners must embrace this way, and gird themselves for the fight like heroes.
To understand the nature of this fight, note the following:
1. In a fight there is something notable, namely that it requires two opposing parties. Between the Church and her enemies there is a natural antipathy, a natural hatred; they cannot bear to hear or see one another; they would rather die than submit to one another, or be united with one another. Between them no friendship can ever come to be. Genesis 3:15: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise its heel. Galatians 5:17: These two are contrary the one to the other. This enmity is the beginning of the fight.
4. In warfare one employs cunning, and therefore one must watch the movements of the other side. The devil uses crafty schemes, Ephesians 6:11; he has depths, Revelation 2:24. The world too has its wiles: the Jews took counsel together that they might take Jesus by craft, Matthew 26:4; Acts 7:19. The flesh is no less cunning than the other two, in hiding sin and presenting only what is pleasurable. Sin easily besets, Hebrews 12:1. These are cunning enemies, who watch every opportunity, and know well how to strike. Against this a covenant partner arms himself, since he knows he is watched on every side, and finds that the Lord wills to save him out of the net they have hidden for him; and he is sober and watches, since his adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, 1 Peter 5:8, and takes to heart the exhortation, Ephesians 5:15-16: See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
5. In warfare one employs force; so it is here too. The devil comes down against them and has great wrath, Revelation 12:12. Where he cannot allure the world, he persecutes it with mockery, withdrawal of trade, oppression, and every kind of persecution, and often wears the covenant partners down so that they weep and cry bitterly, John 16:20 and verse 33: In the world you shall have tribulation. The flesh exerts all the strength it has; it has great force against the good, and great power toward evil, so that life becomes too anxious for covenant partners, and in their distress they cry out: O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Romans 7:24. But covenant partners are strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inward man, Ephesians 3:16. And they take the kingdom of heaven by force, and the violent take it by force, Matthew 11:12. See, then, wherein their power lies — for so it is: not by might, nor by force, but by the power of Christ, whose strength they lay hold of, on whom they look in the fight, on whom they rely, to whom they cry for help. See, so force is met with force. Let each do his best.
6. In warfare there is an outcome — one loses, or one wins; one is defeated, or one triumphs. So it is here too. The whole army of covenant partners will never be wholly defeated. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, Matthew 16:18. Indeed, not one single covenant partner shall be wholly overcome. They shall never perish, and no one shall pluck them out of my hand, John 10:28. It is certain that the Church, and every member of it, whether small or great, shall in the end obtain the victory. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, Revelation 12:11.
Yet as long as they remain in the fight, the skirmishes are not always of one kind, nor always of a wished-for outcome. Sometimes they go out conquering and to conquer, and go from strength to strength, Psalm 84:7. But sometimes the enemies grow too strong for them; they get the worse of it; iniquities prevail over them, Psalm 65:3. Indeed, they are sometimes taken captive under the law of sin which is in their members, Romans 7:23. Comfort departs; sorrow, terror, discouragement, and anxious fearfulness take its place; faith works only like a bruised reed and a smoking flax-wick.
Looking back on their former, more lively condition, the soul sinks in weakness and complains: Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; when his lamp shone upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness; as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tent, when the Almighty was yet with me, Job 29:2-5. And Psalm 89:49: Lord, where are your former lovingkindnesses? Looking at their present, dry, unbelieving, sinful condition, the soul complains in bitter sorrow, Psalm 77:7-9: Will the Lord cast off forever? And will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? Does his promise fail forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his tender mercies? So too Isaiah 63:17: O Lord, why have you made us to err from your ways? Why have you hardened our heart from your fear? Yet in all this defeat in the fight, there still remains life within, which still resists the enemies as much as it can. There is discontent and languishing under their present condition; there is a kind of longing for a more spiritual state, which they desire with all their heart — they cannot cease to hear from God, from their Jesus; the eye still looks toward him, the heart still goes out to him, the mouth still cries to him, even if only in broken outbursts and unutterable sighs. There remains a precious esteem for the godly; the people of Jesus are precious in their eyes. Sin may, like a tyrant and a despot, hold them by force, yet it does not reign; the fight still goes on, though the spirit lies beneath. They will not give it up as lost; they seek to escape it whenever they can, and gain the advantage over their enemy again — for sin remains their enemy, in power, though they leave it not one inch of ground. They do not sin in the same manner as before — not so ignorantly, not so carelessly, not so unashamedly, not so unfeelingly as before; not so willfully, not so willingly; not with the same pleasure as before, and as other unregenerate people do. They know for certain that their soul is sick, that they languish, that they have heartache, and that it will not improve as long as they cannot come nearer to Jesus by faith, and live more holily — this is their heartache. And sin, too, does not always win; sometimes they raise their head again, resist, hinder, and indeed sometimes prevail, and think at times that they have gotten past the difficulty — and sometimes it is even so, but at other times they fall back into emptiness again. See, then, how the covenant partners have a fight on earth, as long as they remain in this militant Church. It is therefore necessary that each one arm himself and enter the fight with courage; and to encourage you to this, attend carefully to the following matters:
1. This is the way of God whereby he leads his children to salvation. It is God's own ordinance: I will put enmity. Is there, then, any way you could lay hold of the good things of the covenant without also engaging the fight? You have declared all God's enemies to be your enemies, and have promised, by all the strength the Lord shall grant, to fight against them. The covenant must be kept unbreakably; you have given your hand on it; you cannot turn back, nor do you wish to. Well then, since you must go through it fighting, and are willing to go through it, is it not right to set about it with manly courage?
3. Consider your condition attentively. Are you not chosen from all eternity to be a favorite of God? Are you not called by God out of the world, the devil, and the flesh, and brought out — as Abraham out of Ur, as Israel out of Egypt — into the company of the friends and children of God? Are you not born of God, and of God's own family? Are you not the King's children, Psalm 45:9,13? Indeed, even kings, Revelation 5:10. Have you not received the bold and princely Spirit, Psalm 51:12? And do you not have a lion's bold heart, Proverbs 28:1? Are you not a rightful heir of eternal glory, which shall never be taken from you by anyone?
Shall not this your descent, condition, and inheritance now lift up your soul to courage in the fight? How would you dare come into the presence of God, of the holy angels, and of the godly, if you let it lie slothfully neglected, and forgot your descent and nobility? Shall a king let himself be taken captive by an insignificant soldier? Would you then let yourself be overmastered and abused by a sinful lust? No — such a thing does not befit your divine descent.
4. Also, the prophecies that were given beforehand concerning you must stir you up to boldness of heart. Thus it stands written of believers, and thus also of you: The weak shall say, I am strong. And Zechariah 10:5: And they shall be as mighty men, who tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: for the Lord shall be with them: and they shall fight, because the riders on horses shall be confounded. When heroes fight, the earth trembles at every step they take; when they are in deep paths where a tender child would sink and remain stuck, they tread through with firm steps; everything gives way, and they trample their enemies like the mire of the streets. So should the godly be — pressing through every storm and treading down their adversary. Indeed, they should not only be as heroes on foot, but as a warhorse. Verse 3: The Lord of hosts shall visit his flock the house of Judah, and shall make them as his goodly horse in the battle. The horse has a singular beauty, and draws every eye to itself, especially when it is splendidly arrayed. Song of Songs 1:9: I have compared you, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. The horse is of remarkable strength; the horse is very bold and warlike. Job 39:19: Have you given the horse strength? Have you clothed his neck with thunder? The horse scents the battle from afar, snorts with courage; it can hardly be held back from charging the enemy; it despises the flashing of the spear, it mocks at the sound of gunfire and the hail of bullets. So should the godly be — as graceful in courage as they are courageous in gracefulness. Will you not now live up to your calling, and, like a hero and a courageous warhorse, fight for your spiritual life and for Christ, and against all his and your enemies? Come then — fight!
5. Look now at the nature and power of the enemies. They are so wicked that they will tolerate the very least good in you; the more you give in to them, the more they crave, and the more strength they gain — they know no stopping and grow never weary, until soul and body both lie in hell. Do they not set themselves directly against the holy and good God? Against your Lord Jesus Christ? Can you bear that? Can you look upon that with approving eyes?
How despicable, foul, loathsome, and hideous they are, even to look at — and would you allow them to master you? Are they not conquered already by the Lord Jesus? He has crushed the devil's head, Genesis 3:15; he has overcome the world, John 16:33; he has taken away the power of sin, Romans 6:2,14. What harm can they do you then? They cannot pluck one hair from your head without the will of your Lord. Surely one may well dare go up against a half-dead enemy — take courage, then. Do not let yourselves be overcome by such vile, contemptible, powerless enemies; rather, fight boldly to combat and conquer them. For there is hope of it: trample them underfoot as under your feet. Do so with your lusts, do so with the world, do so with the devil, and you will see their courage fall, and your own courage grow.
6. Consider that the eye of everyone is upon you; you have entered the arena together with the enemy, and the spectators stand around to watch the fight. On the one side stands Jesus, your chief Captain, with the angels and the faithful — their heart is with you; they long greatly for you to win; they have made your cause their own, and Christ's cause is yours; the Lord Jesus invites them to watch this fight; they will greatly rejoice, and will exult if you win. On the other side stands the devil, and the world — but remember also this word: When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you: for I am the Lord your Savior. He who has the Lord Jesus for his help — shall he not stand and fight as with an army? Run then with God through a troop, and leap with your God over a wall, Psalm 18:29. For he girds you with strength, verse 32; and he teaches your hands to war, verse 34. Say then: The Lord is on my side among them that help me: therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me, Psalm 118:7.
Look also at those who have fought this fight before you, and how happy their outcome has been. James 5:10: My brothers, take, for an example of suffering affliction and of patience, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord. See the roll of heroes, Hebrews 11. Hear their words, which they have left behind in the holy Scriptures, with which they encourage your heart; and see the host of the faithful gathered around you, fighting alongside you, supporting you, praying for you, strengthening you with their words, going before you with their example or immediately following it: he who has such a Captain, who is in such a shining host, and is so surrounded on every side with heroes — each one resolved to stake his life with the Lord Jesus, and to fight to the death against the devil, the world, and sin, and who knows for certain that he will not be overcome by his enemies, but that he shall surely have the victory in his fight — shall not such a one be doubly strong, and fight with a manly courage?
8. The time still remaining to fight is altogether short. It will be but for a little while that these sorrowful and sinful troubles, that these enemies, will oppress and afflict you — and then it will be over. When you lie on your deathbed and look back over the time gone by, you will be grieved and ashamed if you have been sluggish in the fight, that you did not acquit yourself better in so brief a moment as life is compared to eternity; but what a comfort it will be if you have made a valiant stand, and can say: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 1 Timothy 4:7-8. Set your dying day close before you, for it is indeed near, and consider now those two conditions, in one of which you will then find yourself; and as much as you would wish to have done at the last, so much apply yourself now to fight earnestly. Even if you did it with your whole heart only in the last week of your life, would it not give you great comfort? Come then: know that the time remaining is short — fight, then, this little hour yet, with patience and courage.
9. Also take great notice of the promises made to those who fight with courage. God promises to sustain them and to strengthen their heart, Psalm 27:14: Be strong, and he shall strengthen your heart. To set this promise before you invitingly, and so stir you up to the fight, note what God does when he strengthens the heart. This happens in the following ways:
a. When the Lord gives the soul a clear light of its final goal, of its glory and loveliness, so that the heart gains desire, love, and heartfelt earnestness to attain that end. For the end sets the worker in motion, and makes heavy means light. See this in the Lord Christ, Hebrews 12:2: Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.
b. When the Lord clearly shows the soul the powerlessness and brevity of the opposition, so that it can see through it, boast, and take good courage, and, challenging the enemies, count itself more than conqueror, Romans 8:37.
c. When the Lord shows the soul that he has helped it before, and says as it were to the soul: was I not with you then and then, did I not deliver you then? Well then, I will not forsake you now either — though it be distressing, the end shall be sweet and peaceful.
d. When the Lord pours out an extraordinary Spirit and power into the soul, and gives strength to the weary, Isaiah 40. So that at times he takes away the very occasion that continually kept the person down and repeatedly caused them to fall, so that the soul finds fulfilled what is written, Psalm 124:7: Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Or, if the occasion remains, it has no power, so that it breaks against the soul, and the soul is as a wall of steel. Or, if it still retains its power, the soul has all the more power against it, and so, like a hero, prevails.
e. When the Lord comforts them in the midst of the fight, assures them that he loves them, speaks to them: My grace is sufficient for you, 2 Corinthians 12. When the Lord, through small victories, lets them taste of that hidden manna, Revelation 2 — by which the soul again and again begins with new strength, and so, persevering, drives the enemies to flight, or otherwise contends with its foes, and can sustain itself with little expenditure of strength.
If you desire more promises, only open the Word of God and look — you will find many. You shall overcome. Is this not enough? Hear also these promises: Revelation 2:7: To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Verse 11: He that overcomes shall not be hurt of the second death. Verse 17: To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knows saving he that receives it. Verse 26: And he that overcomes, and keeps my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. Verse 27: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. Verse 28: And I will give him the morning star. Chapter 3:5: He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment: and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. Verse 12: Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. Verse 21: To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
Are these promises not enough for you? Does your soul not long for the enjoyment of each one of them? Come then — fight. Without fighting you shall not obtain them. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully, 2 Timothy 2:5. But if you fight, you shall surely also receive all these promises. How sweet it will be to have fought, how sweet and glorious it will be to be led as a conqueror into heaven by Christ's power, and to be crowned with that crown of glory.
Come then: fight against your spiritual enemies, against your lusts and sins, against the world and against the devil. Take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints, Ephesians 6:13-18.
In this fight, guard yourself against carelessness; do not imagine it is already won just because you have made a good resolve — the resolve will grow slack, the clear sight of the foulness of sin, and of the glory of the fight and the victory, will gradually grow dull; the enemies lie in wait for you. Be sober, be vigilant, 1 Peter 5:8.
Guard against discouragement, when the enemies seem so strong, the fight so hard, and God so far away — then one must not lose heart, for that is as much as throwing down one's weapons and stretching out defenseless hands to an enemy with whom there is no mercy at all. Be strong and of good courage, Joshua 1:6, leaning upon the strength and the infallible promises of the Lord Jesus.
Guard against pride; remember Peter, when he said, "I will never be offended," "I will not deny you," Matthew 26:33,35. Be not high-minded, but fear, Romans 11:20. But have a holy courage, leaning on Christ, looking to the prize, looking to the certainty of the victory. Watch, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong, 1 Corinthians 16:13.
Be prudent; do not overstep the bounds of your calling; take heed, do not walk in matters too high for you and beyond your capacities; guard against rash impulses. If you are just beginning and are a young Christian, do not imagine that you already have all wisdom, and that you must proceed according to your own understanding — that causes many to go astray. Rather, go out on the footsteps of the flock, and let a sensible, godly, tried teacher lead you according to God's word. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Ephesians 5:15.
Flee the occasions of sin that you may flee — those by which you have often entangled yourself; he already wins much toward not falling into sin who avoids the occasion.
Set yourself especially against your ruling and besetting sins, and watch the first beginnings. Kill the little ones while they are small. Catch the little foxes. A dead fly makes the apothecary's ointment stink: at first the Spirit has the greatest strength, and sin the least. Resolve to forsake sin wholly and entirely, and to love Christ alone. Come out, show yourself for who you are, set yourself upon it fully — then many temptations will lose their power, and you will live more carefully.
But take refuge always in Christ through faith; faith must be used in this fight — it purifies the heart, it overcomes the world, it withstands the devil, it draws strength out of Christ; by it one lives.
And let faith be joined with constant prayer. Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation, Matthew 26:41. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, 1 Corinthians 15:58.
Chapter 17
Shown here: 1. What the gospel is, both as to the matter and as to the word. 2. That the gospel is a mystery, which is made known to man not by nature but only by the revelation of God. 3. The various manners of revelation across the three periods, namely: A. From Adam to Abraham. B. From Abraham to Christ — here six questions are answered: a. Does the Old Testament begin with Adam, or with Sinai? b. Is the covenant at Horeb a covenant of works? c. Is it a mixed covenant? d. Is it an outward covenant, or a covenant of grace? e. Was the ceremonial service a blessing, or a punishment for the golden calf? f. Did they, in the Old Testament, have the Spirit of adoption, full forgiveness, etc.? C. From Christ to the consummation of the world — here is shown wherein the distinction between the Old and New Testament consists. 4. How each person is to conduct himself with respect to the variety in the revelation of the gospel.
In what has gone before we have shown you the nature of the covenant of grace. Yet of this covenant man has, by nature, no knowledge at all. Man, through sin, has become wholly estranged from God, and can know nothing of this covenant unless God is pleased to reveal it to him and draw him into it, in order to make him a partaker of the salvation obtained, to guide him by his counsel, and afterward to take him up to himself in glory.
The revelation of this counsel and way of God, and the presenting of this Prince, with all his benefits in the covenant of grace, to the poor lost sinner, is the gospel. Ephesians 2:17: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were near. Mark 16:15: Preach the gospel to every creature.
"Gospel" is a Greek word, and means in our language as much as "glad tidings," "good news." Luke 2:10: I bring you good tidings of great joy. Isaiah 61:1: Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the meek. Truly never has more joyful news been heard than that God offers grace and honor to the sinner through the Mediator Jesus Christ.
Nature does not teach this mystery; though it is not contrary to natural reason, it nevertheless lies above it. Man is wholly ignorant of it; if he is to know anything of it, God must reveal it to him. Experience shows this: among which heathen nation was it ever discovered, and made known apart from the gospel? And Holy Scripture confirms this, impressing it deeply on the heart of whoever reads it: Ephesians 6:19, to make known the mystery of the gospel; Colossians 1:26, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints; Matthew 16:17, Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven; 1 Corinthians 2:9, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit.
Just as the Lord devised the obtaining of man's salvation by his unfathomable wisdom, decreed it by his infinite goodness, and accomplished it by his almighty power, so too the Lord alone is he who reveals this mystery to man. God has always had a Church on earth, and shall always have one as long as the world stands; he has always proclaimed the gospel to that Church and through it, and has at all times let his own enjoy the power of the gospel — yet this has not always happened in the same manner. Hebrews 1:1: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.
It serves greatly for the glory of God, and for the stirring up of godliness, that one should know God's dealings with his Church in this respect; therefore we shall undertake to say something of it. To this end, note the three periods, namely: from Adam to Abraham; from Abraham to Christ; and then from Christ to the consummation of the world.
For in each of these periods there has been some variety — not in substance, but in administration.
From Adam to Abraham.
As for the first period, from Adam to Abraham: the Lord has not left us as full a description of his dealings with his Church in that time as of the other periods; yet nevertheless enough that we see that God clearly proclaimed the gospel to them, and by it established for himself a congregation, and blessed it with spiritual blessings.
Immediately after the fall, God proclaimed the gospel to Adam and Eve. What goodness did God let be seen toward the human race! As soon as the whole human race — which Adam and Eve constituted and comprehended within themselves — had departed from God, God, instead of putting them to death and condemning them, as they now deserved on account of the sin committed, comes and proclaims the gospel to the human race in them, saying, Genesis 3:15: I will put enmity between you (serpent) and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Though these words are brief, they nevertheless comprehend the whole work of redemption through the Mediator. And we must not suppose that to the fathers before Abraham nothing more was revealed of the Savior and of salvation, and that they had to have all they knew of it from these few words alone; for it is plain that they were also instructed by other means, and knew more of the Savior. God undoubtedly gave many revelations to those ten successive godly fathers, as clearly appears from their words and deeds.
Eve at once longed after the promised seed, and looked to it. When she had borne Cain, she said, I have gotten a man from the LORD, or a man, the LORD (Genesis 4:1). Who will not believe that she here had her eye upon the Savior — whether we suppose that she erred as to the person, having the notion that it might be Cain, or whether we take it that in seeing her offspring she now saw the beginning of the fact that the promised and delivering seed would in due time be born from her seed and descendants, upon which she may have looked when, after the death of Abel and the wandering-away of Cain, she named her third son Seth: For God, she said, has appointed me another seed instead of Abel (verse 25). This Abel was a righteous man, and he was a believer (Hebrews 11:4).
After the world had stood two hundred and thirty-five years, and the human race now began to multiply, when Enos was born men began to call upon the name of the LORD (Genesis 4:26). This is to say: a church was set up, a churchly assembly instituted, and the gospel was preached; men were instructed in this mystery, believed in the coming Savior, confessed him, and served him. And a distinction was made between the people of God and worldly men, as may be gathered from Genesis 6:1–2: And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they took them wives of all whom they chose.
Enoch too had come to knowledge of the gospel: Enoch walked with God (Genesis 5:24). He was a believer (Hebrews 11:5). How clearly and how extensively did he speak of the Lord Jesus — evidently much more than is written of him, indeed more than Moses relates to us in his account of that first world! Jude, in his epistle, verses 14 and 15, writes thus: Of these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
Lamech acknowledged the curse and the sorrow that sin had brought upon man. He longed for comfort, and to that end, having his eye upon the promised seed, named his son Noah, saying, Genesis 5:29: This same shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed. Whether he erred as to the person, or whether, looking toward the Son from whom the Savior was to come, he so named his boy in remembrance of that.
Noah not only knew and believed in that promised and delivering seed, so that he is counted along with Abraham, Moses, and others in the register of the faithful (Hebrews 11:7), but it is moreover testified of him that he was a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5) — not merely to exhort men to a civil life, which is no true righteousness, but to set the Redeemer before them unto justification and sanctification, and to lead them to him. To this end the Lord Jesus gave him his Holy Spirit, and so preached through him, of which Peter tells us, 1 Peter 3:19–21: By which also he — that is, the Spirit, meaning Christ — went and preached unto the spirits, the souls of men, that are in prison, that is, hell — meaning not that Christ preached to them by his Spirit at that very time, but that they had, by the time Peter wrote, already been preached to — who sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water; the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us.
Alongside these revelations of the Savior through the gospel, which was handed down from the fathers to the children from hand to hand, the Lord had also instituted for them the sacrifices, which, as shadows, images, and seals of the forgiveness of sins through the death and bloodshedding of the promised seed, likewise contained the doctrine and summons unto the confession of sin, the mortification of the old man, cleansing, and the offering up of themselves in the service of God. And they also made known to them the imperfection of that administration.
Of these sacrifices we read, Genesis 4:4: And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof; and the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering. Then of Noah's sacrifice we read, Genesis 8:20: And Noah built an altar unto the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. This was no religion of man's own devising and self-will, but one instituted by God, for:
1. Abel offered in faith (Hebrews 11:4); therefore he had a command. God took delight in Abel and his offering; therefore he looked, through faith, to the Mediator, without whom it is impossible to please God.
2. There was a distinction between clean and unclean animals, which could exist only by God's institution; and that institution of the distinction appears at that time to have had regard only to the sacrifices — see Genesis 8:20 — for in chapter 9, so far as one can tell, every animal without distinction is given to man for food.
3. The sacrifices offered before the times of Moses were shadows pointing to Christ; for when the apostles speak of sacrifices and of blood as shadows, they speak of these generally, without any restriction to before or after the time of Moses. Now, no man may have or set up shadows except by divine institution. Add to this, that the Lord Jesus is called the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).
Thus we see that, in order that men might be saved through Christ, this gospel was at that time proclaimed, believed, and lived out. Behold here the goodness of our God toward the human race in every age! Do not think meanly of those days, though they did not have the gospel in such clarity as we now have. How precious to them was that promised seed! How they longed after its coming, and with what diligence did the fathers teach it to their children! I picture Adam, during those nine hundred and thirty years that he lived, never ceasing to tell his descendants of the glorious estate in which he had been, how lovingly the Lord had dealt with him, how the Lord had promised him a Redeemer, and so on. A few years after his death Noah was born, and Noah in turn lived to be a contemporary of Abraham, so that through the long lives of these godly men the gospel was the more readily preserved and proclaimed. This is the first period.
From Abraham to Christ.
Let us now proceed further, and see how this gospel came to be proclaimed in the second period, from Abraham to Christ. Now as the descendants of Noah spread over the face of the earth and away from one another, and as the true knowledge of God and true religion, and this lovely gospel, had almost fallen into oblivion — though here and there, without doubt, it still showed itself — God called Abraham and proclaimed the gospel to him (Galatians 3:8). He promised him that seed, and determined that it should come forth from him in due time. See Genesis 22:18: In your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And he dealt with him in a most familiar and plain manner, and solemnly made a covenant with him.
This the Lord afterward promised also to his son Isaac (Genesis 26:4), and thereafter to Jacob (Genesis 28:14), who on his deathbed cried out, longing after the blessed and blessing seed, Genesis 49:18: I have waited for your salvation, O LORD. And who gave to his son Judah this blessing, Genesis 49:10: The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. And just as Abraham was known by God, that he would command his children and his household after him, and that they should keep the way of the LORD (Genesis 18:19), so he took this to heart with great faithfulness; and so also did Isaac and Jacob, and thereby this gospel was preserved among their descendants in Egypt.
But when the Lord delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt and led them toward Canaan, he then had the gospel proclaimed to them in a far more glorious manner, and invited the whole nation to enter into covenant with him, which indeed they did (Exodus 19). Thereupon the Lord gave them, as his covenant partners, the law of the ten words, to be a rule of life. And he had the tabernacle set up for them, and instituted the whole Levitical religion, in order to make the Mediator and his person known to them plainly — in his offices, his life and death, and his fullness unto justification, sanctification, and eternal glorification — until the Lord, having taken away all the shadows at the coming of the body, instituted a clearer and more spiritual administration.
In order to form a clear conception of this administration of the covenant of grace, one must know that God, immediately after the fall, established the covenant of grace, and that this covenant has remained, from that time onward, through all ages, and shall remain until the consummation of the world — through which alone all true believing covenant partners obtain salvation.
Note here that this one and the same covenant has been administered in different ways — one way before the time of Christ, another way after it: formerly also by teaching, depicting, and assuring shadows; afterward, without all those outward things. The first administration Holy Scripture calls the first and the Old Testament or covenant; the second, the New Testament (Hebrews 8:13; Hebrews 9:15; 2 Corinthians 3:6,14). These are called testaments or covenants, not with respect to their essence — for in that they are one and the same — but with respect to the manner of administration, which has been different.
The essence of the Old Testament is not the promise and inheritance of Canaan; and the essence of the New Testament is not the promise of heaven, or any spiritual goods essentially distinct from the goods of the Old Testament — for the Old Testament was not destitute of the promise and inheritance of heaven, and of those same spiritual goods, in kind; and through the New Testament, as new — that is, as a new administration — no one obtains heaven, but heaven is promised and obtained only through the covenant, and not through the oldness or newness of the administration. But the essence of both administrations consists in their being shadowy and spiritual: spiritual, I say, not as though the shadowy administration was not spiritual, but because the one was exercised through tangible and bodily images, and the other without them.
One must not begin the first, or Old, Testament with the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt and from Sinai — the time when the shadowy service received its particular splendor and glory, and for that reason may indeed, and often is, pre-eminently called the Old Covenant, yet not so as to exclude, but rather to include, that same administration, in kind, both before and after that time. Rather, the Old Testament had its beginning with the first gospel in Paradise. Before the time of the exodus, while the same essence of the covenant and the same shadowing administration in kind remained, there were various degrees of clarity in the administration. If one compares the administration before and after Sinai with one another, one may observe these distinctions:
1. Before that time, the gospel and its administration was handed down from hand to hand through images, without writing — at least none is known; but after that time everything was clearly written down by the inspiration of God, and delivered to the church.
2. All the former distinctions of animals, sacrifices, manners of offering, and sacraments were carefully gathered together and increased with still others, and instituted and confirmed into a fixed and orderly, public religion.
3. To this was added the general and public entrance of the people of Israel into covenant with God, in that solemn and glorious manner in which God proclaimed the law from Horeb with such majestic signs.
4. Then the church was set apart from all other nations, and gathered together and set up as one nation, comprising a very great multitude of members. Canaan was promised, and given as a dwelling place to the church; there the public worship was established and bound to Jerusalem; there they were to await the promised Messiah. Over this church and this land the Lord kept his eye and providence so palpably that a name went out from it, and the church became formidable among all the nations.
5. To this were added, by degrees, more and clearer revelations of the coming Messiah, which increased all the more as the dayspring from on high drew near.
Thus we see there were various degrees within the Old administration, but it was the same covenant, and the same kind of administration, from Adam to Christ.
In order to understand clearly and plainly the whole matter of the administrations of the covenant of grace, we shall pose and answer several questions.
Question I. Whether the Old Testament consists in the promise of the inheritance of Canaan, and began with the exodus out of Egypt or from Sinai; or whether the Old Testament — being the covenant of grace, called "old" with respect to its administration — began with the first gospel in Paradise?
I answer: not the first, but the second, is true.
The Old Testament does not consist in the inheritance of Canaan. This is evident: 1. Because in Holy Scripture the Old Covenant is nowhere set forth as consisting in the inheritance of Canaan otherwise than as one of the goods of the covenant of grace, and as one among the other shadows; rather, Scripture expressly sets it forth as the manner of administration of the covenant of grace, which stands over against the administration of the New Testament. Now it is not Canaan alone that stands over against it, but the whole shadowy administration.
It is true, Canaan was promised as an inheritance, but not by a separate testament, nor such that the Old Testament should consist in it, but as a pledge, an image, and an administration of something spiritual, like the other shadows.
II. The Old Covenant is, in substance, the covenant of grace, having spiritual promises; the bodily ones are but an addition. So the inheritance of Canaan is not of its nature. The first point is proved in Question 4. The second appears from the fact that otherwise the inheritance of Canaan would have to be regarded as something separate from that.
III. Either one must regard Canaan as an earthly blessing and rest in it as such, or as a shadow of spiritual goods. If the first, then the Old Covenant is an outward covenant — which is refuted in Question 4. If the second, then it is of one nature with all the other shadows; and just as little as any other shadow makes a new covenant, just as little can this shadow do so.
IV. Add to this that in Holy Scripture it constantly happens that a spiritual promise is joined to the inheritance of Canaan, as for example Genesis 17:8: And I will give unto you, and to your seed after you, the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Accordingly, one may not rest in the inheritance of Canaan, and regard it as a separate promise standing on its own, or as a separate covenant.
V. It is certain that the Old Testament had to grow old and vanish away with the coming of the new. Hebrews 8:13: In that he says, a new covenant, he has made the first old; now that which decays and grows old is ready to vanish away. But the inheritance of Canaan — at least according to the view of those who make the Old Testament consist in the inheritance of Canaan — is not made old, nor annulled by the coming of the New Testament, since they hold that the Jews will again possess the land of their fathers, to which many passages are supposed to refer. Accordingly, the Old Testament does not consist in the inheritance of Canaan. We do not deny that the children of Israel received Canaan as an inheritance, but we deny that this came about through a covenant separate from the covenant of grace; rather, we say that it came about by virtue of the covenant of grace, and that Canaan belongs to its administration.
Having thus established that the essence of the Old Testament does not consist in the inheritance of Canaan, we say further:
This appears thus: I. Because the divine Scriptures, describing the state and religion of the church from Adam to Sinai, comprising a period of 2,450 years, are called the Old Testament. 2 Corinthians 3:14: For until this day the same veil remains untaken away. Who can bring himself to think that the first book of Moses, and part of the second, are not included here, but excluded? And besides that the apostle includes all the books from Genesis to Malachi, it is surely also certain that the veil lay just as much over their hearts in reading Genesis as in the other books. Since, then, the writings of the church before Moses are called the Old Testament, the church itself was surely the church of the Old Testament, and so the Old Testament is not to be reckoned from Sinai.
II. No change of kind in the administration took place at Sinai, but the same shadowy service that had existed from Adam to Moses remained; only now and then more was added. Now we know that more or less does not change the kind. They had then clean and unclean animals, altars and sacrifices; and because these depicted Christ's suffering, Christ is called the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). Now it is certain that the shadows and sacrifices depicting Christ belong to the Old Covenant; therefore the church before Moses was the church of the Old Covenant, and the Old Covenant did not begin at Sinai.
III. Add to this that the apostle Paul, extending the power of Christ's redemption with respect to time, names only two times, namely, yesterday and today. Hebrews 13:8: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Yesterday is all the time that is past, and today is the present time of the New Covenant. Now, all the time that is past the apostle calls the Old Covenant, Hebrews 9:15: And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament... Just as the death of Christ is extended to cover yesterday and today, so it is set forth as effectual under two testaments. Of a third time or state there is no mention. And it is moreover certain that Christ's death is for the reconciliation of the transgressions that the godly, from Adam onward to Moses, had also committed; and therefore all the time from Adam to Moses, and so onward to Christ, is the time of the Old Testament. This also appears from verse 26, where Paul, speaking of the administration of the Old Covenant, says: otherwise he must often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
IV. Does not everything belong to the Old Covenant, in whose place the New Covenant has come — everything, that is, which is made old and has grown aged, and had to vanish away? Surely it must, without fail, for so the apostle says, Hebrews 8:13: In that he says, a new covenant, he has made the first old; now that which decays and grows old is ready to vanish away. Hebrews 12:27: And this word, "Yet once more," signifies the removing of those things that are shaken. Now it is certain that not only the shadows given after the exodus, but also all those instituted from the time of Adam onward, were annulled and made old through Christ's death. Therefore the shadows, and the whole time from Adam to Christ, are the Old Testament.
V. Since Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were within the Old Covenant, the Old Covenant did not begin at Sinai, for they had lived hundreds of years before that. That they were within the Old Covenant appears from the fact that they had Canaan for an inheritance by a testament sworn and sealed to them by God — see, from many passages, Genesis 15:7–8: I am the LORD that brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it. And he said, LORD God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? See also Genesis 17:8. They had altars and sacrifices, which were then shadows just as much as afterward, and which had to be offered through faith just as much as afterward (Hebrews 11). They also had the sacrament of circumcision as a sign of the covenant (Genesis 17:10–11).
Therefore all the descendants of Abraham are found in no other covenant than that covenant which God had established with Abraham; see Deuteronomy 29:1–13: You stand this day all of you before the LORD your God... that you should enter into covenant with the LORD your God... that he may establish you today for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto you a God, as he has said unto you, and as he has sworn unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If then Abraham too was within the Old Testament, then the Old Testament is not to be begun from Sinai, but had already long existed before it.
Against this someone might raise a few objections, such as:
I. Moses says, Deuteronomy 5:3: The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers. I answer: not in those circumstances, so gloriously, and so forth — see this passage explained and defended in Question 4.
II. Jeremiah 31:31–32, where the LORD, promising a new covenant, says: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. Answer: The principal degree is named, and the whole is understood under it. See Question 4.
III. Hebrews 9:18: Why then was not the first testament dedicated without blood? Answer: When it came to be administered publicly, it was also dedicated publicly; but while it was still administered by each individual in his own particular way, it was also dedicated by blood in that particular way — see Genesis 4:4 and Genesis 15:9. Paul speaks here of the public dedication among the nation. A king may well have been king a long time before his coronation.
Thus we have seen the nature of the Old Covenant, and from where its beginning is to be reckoned.
Question II. Whether the covenant made at Horeb is a covenant of works.
For clarification it should be noted: 1. That the moral law, that is, the ten words, contains in itself the matter of the covenant of works, comprising all that Adam was to be and to do in order to obtain the highest degree of blessedness; for it is perfect (Psalm 19). It is the law of perfect love (Matthew 22). Upon obedience to it follows eternal life (Matthew 19).
2. One must also note that God led that stiff-necked people in a stricter manner than he now leads his church in the New Testament, and that he therefore continually let them be convicted of their sins and transgressions, and of the curse they deserved, so as thereby, as by a schoolmaster, to bring them to Christ (Galatians 3:24).
3. It should also be noted that the carnal Jews, through their blindness and folly, turned the covenant made at Horeb into a covenant of works, and of grace without a Mediator, resting on a shabby, halting obedience — as appears from Romans 9:31–32; Romans 10:3; Galatians 5:4. Having thus premised these things, we say that the covenant at Sinai is not a covenant of works. This is evident from the following reasons.
I. God's righteousness cannot permit him to enter into a covenant of friendship with a sinner without a Mediator, who, by bearing it, takes away the vengeance due to the broken covenant, as is shown at length in chapter 4. Now the Israelites were sinners, and the covenant of works has no Mediator; therefore this cannot be the covenant of works.
II. Whoever God should enter into a covenant of works with must be in a condition to satisfy the demand of the covenant of works, so that he could, in truth, embrace and promise perfect obedience as the condition on which his salvation was to be obtained. For God's righteousness and truth do not permit him truly to make a covenant upon a lying promise of man, nor to set before the powerless sinner anew perfection as a condition of being saved, and upon that to erect a second covenant of works — although God, by virtue of man's original estate, rightly requires perfect obedience. Now man is not in a condition to do or promise anything, see chapter 4. Therefore this cannot be a covenant of works.
III. If this were a covenant of works, then Israel would have been under the covenant of works and the covenant of grace at the same time. They were under the covenant of grace, or else no one could have been saved, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified (Romans 3:20). And if this had also been the covenant of works, then they would have been under those two covenants, of grace and of works, at once. Now this is impossible, for the one destroys the other: if they had to seek salvation through works, then the covenant of grace, with its promises, would have had no place; and if they had to seek salvation through the covenant of grace, then the covenant of works would have had no place (Romans 11), for that would have annulled the promises. But the covenant made at Horeb has not annulled the promises (Galatians 3:17). Therefore this covenant has not been a covenant of works.
IV. If this had been a covenant of works, then they might indeed have sought salvation from works, for this is the declaration: The man that does these things shall live by them (Romans 10:5). But this they were not permitted to do, as appears from verse 3 and the other passages mentioned above. Accordingly, the covenant made at Horeb has not been the covenant of works.
Against this someone might think: if the covenant at Horeb is not the covenant of works, how then is the law so constantly set over against grace, as in John 1:17: The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Romans 10:5–6: Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law, that the man that does these things shall live by them. Romans 4:14: For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. Galatians 3:18: For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise.
I answer. 1. It is one thing for the covenant at Horeb to be set over against grace, another thing for the law to be set over against it. The covenant at Horeb is never set over against grace.
2. The law may be considered either insofar as it contains in itself the demand of the covenant of works established with Adam, or insofar as it is a rule for the covenant partners, to direct their walk by, and to end in Christ, who is the end of the law, just as one began with him. Considered in its letter, it stands over against grace. But considered within the covenant of grace, and in the end for which it was given, it includes grace.
3. The Jews perverted both the moral and the ceremonial laws from their true end, for which they had been given — namely, to be a schoolmaster unto Christ, and to give them a pattern of perfection to pursue after. And they remained hanging on that outward observance, and thereby made of it almost a covenant of works, seeking their righteousness from the law. Against this the apostle sets himself, and shows what the law, in itself, apart from its true end, and set over against grace, is. In the same way many so-called Christians also turn the gospel into a covenant of works, when they come to rest upon the outward work done.
4. Scripture indeed expressly says that the law is not against the promise. Romans 10:4: For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. Galatians 3:21: Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. Thus the law has been our schoolmaster unto Christ; from which it now appears both how it is set over against grace, and how it is not set over against grace — namely, that with respect to the true end for which it was given at Horeb, it is not set over against grace. So that these passages brought forward above do not prove that the covenant at Horeb is a covenant of works.
Question III. Whether the covenant at Sinai is a mixed covenant, composed partly of works and partly of the covenant of grace together — namely, that God would be content, even though they did not have perfect conformity to the law, provided only they had an upright intention and a sincere endeavor after obedience and true godliness, and then, further, believed in the Messiah to be the fulfillment of their deficiency?
I answer: The covenant of grace includes holiness. It is a promise offered by God, as has been seen above. No one enters into the covenant of grace unless he has desire and longing for holiness, and gives himself over to that covenant unto it. And no one is within the covenant of grace except him who is truly a partaker of sanctification in some degree. And God deals with his covenant partners as a Father, rewarding out of grace his obedient children. And upon whomever God wills to bestow greater grace, him he first makes a fit and receptive subject, by first giving lesser grace. But holiness, even in the smallest degree, cannot come in as a condition of a covenant, which either God should require of man, or man should promise. This is plainly evident:
I. From all the reasons by which we proved in Question II that the covenant at Sinai is not a covenant of works: for man is not only powerless to render perfect obedience, but is also, of himself, unfit and worthless for any good works. He cannot take the least step toward perfection; and since he can do nothing, so in truth he can also promise nothing as any sort of condition of a covenant.
II. Paul speaks directly against this. Romans 11:6: And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. So it is then impossible that those two, as conditions for the making of a covenant, should flourish together.
III. From this follow of themselves these absurdities: if works and faith, as conditions, flourished together for the establishing of a covenant, then one would obtain righteousness partly from works and partly from faith, contrary to Romans 9:30–32. Then Christ would not be a perfect Savior, since man himself would contribute something — contrary to Hebrews 7:25. Then the godly would be partly under the curse (Galatians 3:12) and partly under the blessing. And when the promised condition of some measure of obedience failed, what then? Would they then fall from grace? Would the promises then be annulled by virtue of this so-called covenant of grace? See how full of absurdities these notions are. And accordingly the untruth of this position appears.
But someone might think: nevertheless holiness is required as a condition of that covenant at Horeb. Exodus 19:5: Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me. Verse 8: And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD has spoken we will do.
I answer. 1. That man can promise nothing of himself has been proved above. And so here obedience and the keeping of the covenant are not required as a condition which the people were to bring, upon which the covenant would be entered into.
2. But the true godly here declared the obligation that lay upon them to obey God, and acknowledged it with satisfaction, not wishing to be free from that obligation. They declared their sincerity in their dealing with God. They declared their willingness and readiness to obey God, yet acknowledged that this frame of soul had not proceeded from themselves, and that its fulfillment would not come about by their own power either — but looked to the Mediator of the covenant into which they entered, who had sanctification as a promise.
3. God required their promise in order to convict them of either their sincerity or their falseness. For although sanctification was not required as a condition for the establishing of a covenant, it was nevertheless required as a mark of a true or a false covenant partner, and as a quality upon which God is willing to bestow the possession of those goods to which they had gained a right by entering into the covenant. This sanctification has its origin not from man but from God. Thus we see how the Lord requires obedience, not as a condition upon which the covenant would or would not be entered into, but as a mark of truth — as a father requires obedience of his child, and promises to reward it.
Question IV. Whether the covenant made with Israel at Sinai, and thereafter remaining among Israel until Christ, is merely an outward covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace; or whether the covenant of grace itself is administered in an outward manner?
Before we enter into the matter itself, we shall say a few things beforehand, which serve for clarification.
I. Not all things properly called covenants bear the name "covenant"; rather the word often signifies something which in some respect agrees with a covenant properly so called.
1. An unchangeable promise. Genesis 9:9–10: And behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you. Now, in a covenant properly so called, there must be the consent of both parties; but this is not the case here on the part of the animals, with whom the Lord is here said to make a covenant. But because in a covenant there are promises which must certainly be kept, this promise is, by way of likeness — and not properly — called a covenant.
2. The word "covenant" sometimes signifies a fixed ordinance that cannot be broken, by likeness to the firmness that is in a covenant. See Jeremiah 33:20: If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, so that there should not be day and night in their season...
3. Peace is the effect of a covenant; therefore it too bears, by likeness, the name of covenant. Job 5:23: For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you.
4. A covenant partner must carefully guard himself against doing anything against the covenant; this careful watchfulness is, by likeness, called making a covenant. Job 31:1: I have made a covenant with my eyes.
5. In a covenant there are laws which are set forth and accepted as conditions. Thus the command itself bears the name of covenant. Deuteronomy 4:13: And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments, and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. The ten words were not, properly speaking, the covenant itself, for the covenant had already been made earlier; but these were laws according to which the covenant partners were to live.
6. The administration of the covenant also bears the name of covenant. Thus circumcision is called the covenant, though it is really only the seal by which the covenant was confirmed. Genesis 17:10: This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you: every man child among you shall be circumcised. See also Jeremiah 31:31: Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Here the new covenant bears the name of covenant — for it was not new as far as its essence is concerned, having already existed in the days of Adam, but it is new with respect to its administration, and it is in that respect that it is here called a covenant.
Behold, then, how manifold is the use of the word "covenant." One must not, therefore, be led astray at once into understanding a covenant properly so called, every time one finds the word "covenant."
II. One must carefully distinguish, and yet also rightly bring together, the covenant itself and its administration. The former is always the same; in the latter, change can indeed take place, and change has taken place, the thing itself remaining the same. Through the one is salvation; through the other, not as such. The one is inward and spiritual; the other, outward and bodily. For example: it cannot be doubted that the new covenant, or testament, is, in essence, the covenant of grace; yet its new administration is nevertheless outward. It is delivered to us in dead letters in a book, proclaimed by a bodily voice. The sacraments are earthly elements — water, bread, and wine. The confession is outward; outwardly the discipline is exercised.
Now separate this outward administration from the inward things administered, as many so-called Christians do who remain hanging in outward things alone — can that administration by itself save? Is there power in it, in itself? Is it not a dead letter without the Spirit? Surely it is.
Is this outward administration, then, a covenant essentially distinct from the covenant of grace? Is the New Testament, on that account, an outward covenant? Surely not — and yet this too is called a covenant.
Behold, then, one must carefully distinguish the covenant of grace and its administration, and yet rightly join them together; and because the administration is outward, one must not therefore reckon the covenant to be outward, and one covenant essentially distinct from another — but rather the covenant of grace itself, administered in such a manner. And as this is so in the New Testament, weighty reasons would need to present themselves before one should say otherwise of the Old Testament. Certainly, on account of a greater or lesser degree of outwardness in the administration, one may not do so.
III. One must carefully distinguish the covenant itself from man's entering into, or being admitted into, that covenant. The covenant of grace is unquestionably an inward, spiritual covenant. Many a man pretends to himself as though he enters into that inward covenant, and yet does not in truth do so, but does it without understanding, from custom, because others do so, without earnestness, outwardly with the mouth, before men — and therefore also remains hanging in the outward service. He has in view no outward covenant, but such a covenant by which he might be saved. Such a one does not truly come into the covenant, yet nevertheless enjoys, through that outward act, some privileges and advantages — namely, the outward peace which the church has, the administration of the Word, the oversight of the shepherds over him, to instruct, admonish, rebuke, and guide him. From this it appears, then, that one must not make the covenant, in its essence, an outward thing merely because some engage themselves in it only outwardly.
IV. One must note that there is a very great difference between the church of the Old and the New Testaments, both with respect to the outward administration and with respect to the degree of the communication of grace; and that it is agreed by all that the degree of administration and of dispensation makes no change of kind, nor in the essence of the thing itself.
V. It is also to be noted that God, in the first two thousand years, chose no particular nation in which to enclose his church; but that God afterward chose a single nation, to have the covenant of grace administered to it, and to establish his church within it — and that the apostles, speaking to that nation, accommodate their speech to the administration that had come to that nation, without thereby excluding the former administration.
Having thus premised these things, the question at issue is not whether the covenant of grace has existed from Adam onward to Christ, and shall remain so until the consummation of the world — that is established. But whether God, the covenant of grace remaining throughout all ages, has, alongside it, with Israel at Sinai and thereafter until Christ, additionally set up another, merely outward covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace — a covenant which had only outward promises, namely the land of Canaan, multiplication of the seed, long life, prosperity in earthly possessions, and so forth; which had only outward commands, and required only outward obedience; which had only an earthly sanctuary, a bodily service, fleshly sacrifices; of which all Israelites, however ungodly they were, were true covenant partners; which had not existed before that time, and was entirely annulled with the coming of Christ; and which was merely a shadow — or whether the covenant made at Sinai is the covenant of grace itself, and there merely obtained a more evident and glorious degree of administration? To the first we say, No; to the second, Yes. First we shall prove this alone, and then remove the objections.
The covenant at Sinai has not been an outward covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace.
This is evident from the following reasons: 1. The Old Testament, or covenant, has not been an outward covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace. The covenant at Sinai has been the Old Testament, or covenant. Therefore the covenant at Sinai has not been an outward covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace.
The second premise is beyond all question. The first premise appears thus: if all believers from Adam to Moses were within the Old Testament, then necessarily one of two things follows — either that they were all under an outward covenant, which everyone denies; or that the Old Testament, or covenant, has not been an outward covenant. Now all believers from Adam to Moses were within the Old Testament, as has been abundantly proved in Question I. Thus it is firmly evident that the Old Covenant is not an outward covenant; and accordingly, that the covenant at Sinai, being the Old Covenant, is not an outward covenant.
II. In the whole of Holy Scripture there is never any mention of two covenants, by the one of which salvation was not, and by the other of which salvation was, to be obtained. And in particular, this covenant at Horeb is never set over against a covenant of grace, nor a covenant of grace set over against this covenant; rather, all the promises and commands are brought together into one covenant. So they are but self-invented and groundless notions, when one would posit two covenants, essentially distinct from one another, before the time of Christ.
III. The covenant at Sinai is frequently, in Holy Scripture, set over against the New Testament, or covenant. Now this opposition is either with respect to essence, or with respect to circumstances. It cannot be essential; for the New Testament, insofar as it is set over against the Old, has neither existed before the Old — for then it would have been the first — nor has it existed together with the Old at the same time; but it came after the Old, and in the place of the Old. Besides what the word "new" itself implies, see also Jeremiah 31:31: Behold, the days come that I will make a new covenant. Hebrews 8:13: In that he says, a new covenant, he has made the first old. Now it is certain that the New Covenant is, in essence, the covenant of grace, and that through it alone is the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28), and that salvation is not to be obtained by any other way or covenant. So that, if the opposition were essential, then before the coming of Christ, and in the times of the Old Testament, there could have been neither the covenant of grace nor the forgiveness of sins — for the New Covenant, which is the covenant of grace, would not yet have existed. But this is absurd, and wholly contrary to the whole Word of God.
It is thus evident that the opposition is not essential. And if it is not essential, then it remains that it is only with respect to the circumstances of the administration, and the like. I therefore conclude: since the Old and New Testaments differ not essentially, but only circumstantially, the Old Covenant is not an outward covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace.
IV. If the Old Covenant is an outward covenant, then it is also an outward testament, essentially distinct from the testament of grace, for it is called just as much a testament as a covenant. Now it is not an outward testament, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace. For there is no testament, at least not in force, without the death of the testator. And here there is no death of a testator — for Christ alone is the testator of the covenant of grace, and his death has confirmed only the testament of grace, and not a testament by which one obtains no spiritual goods, and of which the ungodly remain heirs. And the death of the animals was not the death of the testator. Accordingly it is also not an outward testament, essentially distinct from the testament of grace, but the testament of grace itself. Accordingly it is also not an outward covenant.
V. If this covenant at Sinai is an outward covenant, then the holiness and righteousness of God could permit God to establish a covenant of union, friendship, and blessing with men who are and remain ungodly, his enemies, and reprobates — and that without a Mediator of true reconciliation. For this covenant was a covenant of union, of friendship, and of blessing, and its covenant partners were, for the most part, ungodly, enemies of God, and reprobates. But the holiness and righteousness of God do not permit this, as is shown in chapter 4, and every Christian shudders at the thought. Accordingly it is not an outward covenant.
But someone might think: the union, friendship, and blessings are merely outward; and it is indeed well known that God does give outward blessings to the ungodly in this life.
I answer: 1. Outward union and inward, real separation; outward friendship and inward, real hatred and enmity; outward blessings and inward, real condemnation; outwardly a possession, and inwardly and in truth a people of damnation — if men dealt so with one another, and so made a covenant with each other, would not the most ungodly detest such a thing as hypocrisy? This would do injustice to the Almighty.
2. It is one thing for God, out of a general longsuffering and goodness, to bear with the ungodly and give them outward goods, while yet declaring them his enemies; and another thing to do this within a covenant of friendship and possession. The one is a virtue; the other is, even among men themselves, contradictory and no virtue.
3. Even if such an outward thing could stand with the righteousness of God, still the holiness and truth of God do not permit such dealing with a sinner without a Mediator of reconciliation. That cannot happen at all, and such dealing is contrary to God; they are unseemly thoughts of God, that the High, the Holy, the True God should have such outward dealings, covenants, and dalliances with a filthy sinner.
VI. If the covenant at Horeb is such an outward covenant as has been described above, then God takes pleasure and delight in bodily work without the heart, for the covenant would then require only outward obedience — for if it required inward obedience, and were nevertheless a covenant distinct from the covenant of grace, it would be a covenant of works, which we have refuted above. Then it would be an imperfect covenant of works: then it would suffice for the fulfilling of this covenant merely outwardly to have no other gods, though one had them in one's heart; to have no outward images; not outwardly to misuse God's name, though one blasphemed it in one's heart; outwardly to keep the Sabbath holy; outwardly to obey one's parents, though despising them in one's heart; outwardly not to kill, though hating one's neighbor; outwardly to commit no adultery, though the heart were full of impurity; outwardly not to steal; outwardly to give no false witness — where, then, would one be left with the tenth commandment, you shall not covet?
But: 1. I judge that even a Socinian, even a heathen, would shudder at these propositions. 2. This is contrary to the very nature of God, who delights in truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6), whose eyes look for truth (Jeremiah 5:3). This is contrary to the express requirement of Deuteronomy 6:5: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. This requirement was made by virtue of this very covenant, by which they obtained Canaan as an inheritance, as appears from Deuteronomy 4:10, 18.
4. This is contrary to the threat of Isaiah 29:13–14: Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me... therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder.
5. Then they could never be outwardly punished with outward plagues, so long as they merely kept the commandments outwardly, however ungodly they lived within; for outward obedience was promised outward blessing.
Now all these things are too dreadful to contemplate, and yet must necessarily follow if one posits an outward covenant — and still more undeniably if one says that only outward obedience was required for this covenant. Accordingly, the covenant at Sinai has not been an outward covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace.
VII. Under this outward covenant the believers were either included or not. If not, then they were not bound to all those outward services, and had no promises of Canaan and further outward blessings to expect — whereas in fact they did. If they were, then: 1. The believers were, at once, under two essentially distinct covenants. 2. And they were under that outward covenant either as believers, or as Abraham's seed, in the same respect as the ungodly. If as believers, then it was not an outward covenant, but the covenant of grace; and if it was not that — though it necessarily had to be — then, as believers, they were under two essentially distinct covenants. If as the seed of Abraham, then, as believers, they were not bound to all the outward services, and then, as believers, they would have had no promise of Canaan to expect — yet how then could many not have been able to enter in, because of their unbelief?
Thus we have seen, then, that the covenant at Horeb has not been an outward covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace. Now we shall also prove that it has been the covenant of grace itself.
The covenant at Sinai has been the covenant of grace itself.
This is plainly evident from these reasons:
I. The covenant established with Abraham was not a separate covenant, essentially distinct from the covenant of grace, but the covenant of grace itself. The covenant at Horeb has been the very same covenant that God had established with Abraham. Therefore the covenant at Horeb is not a separate covenant, but the covenant of grace itself.
The first premise cannot be doubted, unless one asserts that the covenant at Horeb is an outward covenant. But we show this to the full as follows: 1. The covenant with Abraham had Christ as Mediator (Genesis 12:3, compared with Galatians 3:17). 2. It had God as its God, as a shield and exceeding great reward (Genesis 15 and 17). 3. Through it Abraham was made a father of believers (Genesis 17, compared with Romans 4:11). 4. It had to be received through faith unto justification (Genesis 15, compared with Romans 4:18–20). 5. It had a sacrament, which sealed that righteousness (Romans 4:11). Thus it is plain that this covenant established with Abraham is the covenant of grace. Add to this, 6, that God, besides this covenant of grace, established no other covenant at all with Abraham by which he was to receive outward promise; rather, all that one might call outward is included within this very same covenant — such as the multiplication of his seed, and the land of Canaan (Genesis 17:6,8) — though spiritual things also lay hidden within these. Thus the first premise stands firm.
The second premise, that the covenant at Horeb has been the very same covenant that God had established with Abraham, is now confirmed:
A. First, from many express passages. Deuteronomy 7:11–12: You shall therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command you this day, to do them. Wherefore it shall come to pass, if you hearken to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD your God shall keep unto you the covenant and the mercy which he swore unto your fathers. Deuteronomy 29:9: Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them. Verse 10: You stand this day all of you before the LORD your God. Verse 12: That you should enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day. Verse 13: That he may establish you today for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto you a God, as he has said unto you, and as he has sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Here, then, the covenant which God established with the children of Israel is said to be that very covenant which God had sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that by virtue of that covenant they were to receive the mercies sworn to them.
Against this someone might object: in these passages it is indeed said that the covenant which God established with Israel in the wilderness had been sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but this is to be understood not as though that covenant were the very same covenant which had been established with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but that God had sworn to them that he would afterward, once more, establish a covenant — and one of a different nature — with their seed.
To this it should be answered, that this appears neither from these words nor from other texts, and that it is therefore but a loose notion. Weigh the texts, and see whether your mind can find therein the foundation for such a construction as might please you — and I am certain it cannot. Moreover, this is against the text itself, which says that the LORD will keep the covenant and the mercy which he swore to your fathers.
Moreover, it is also against Genesis 17:7–8. Here it is not promised that God would afterward, at some time, make a covenant with his seed; rather, that he then and there made it as much with his seed as he made it with him — it is expressed in one style, as one matter, with the same words, and said as in one breath. God made a covenant with Abraham's seed as in him — a covenant that was to abide in him. From this no doubt can be maintained, for it stands as much of Abraham himself as of his seed. And since, with respect to Abraham, it did not signify a future time as to the establishing of it, but rather as to the fulfillment of the promised matter within that covenant — so then also not with respect to his seed, for the words, the style, and everything are the same.
Besides that the words themselves are clear enough, see the force of this manner of speaking in Deuteronomy 29:14–15: Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that stands here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day. See also Genesis 9:9–10: And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you, and with every living creature. This surely does not mean that God would afterward, at some other time, establish another covenant with his seed, but that the seed was thereby already included in that covenant.
B. Secondly, the second premise of the syllogism set forth above — namely, that the covenant at Horeb was the very same covenant that God had established with Abraham — is here further established, from the fact that the outward promises and service which Israel had, Abraham had also; and that the spiritual promises which Abraham had, Israel had also. Now where the same promise, the same laws, the same service is found, there also is the same covenant. And here everything is altogether the same.
Abraham had, as a promise, the multiplication of his seed (Genesis 17:6: I will make you exceeding fruitful); the land of Canaan for an inheritance (verse 8: And I will give unto you, and to your seed after you — note well, not only "your seed," but expressly "you": both you and your seed being heirs — the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession); outward blessings (Genesis 12:2: I will... bless you). Abraham had the same law by which he had to live, briefly summed up in these words, Genesis 17:1: Walk before my face, and be perfect. Abraham had an outward administration of the covenant, namely an earthly altar (Genesis 12:7; 13:18). Fleshly sacrifices — for he did not build the altar in vain, but, like the fathers before him, Abel and Noah, offered beasts upon it (see Genesis 15:9–10). An outward sign as a sacrament, namely circumcision (Genesis 17:11).
On account of these things, surely, the covenant with Israel might well be called outward — but see, Abraham had these very things too, within the covenant of grace. Yet these things did not end in what was outward, but in their spiritual administration: in the multiplication of the seed was Christ, and in believing the multiplication was faith in Christ unto justification. Romans 4:18: Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall your seed be. Verse 22: And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Canaan was Immanuel's land (Isaiah 8:8) — there was the church, there the true religion, there the Messiah was to be awaited. The altar and the sacrifices had Christ within them. Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith.
So then, on this account also, a covenant cannot be called outward. Thus Abraham and the children of Israel were alike with respect to outward things; whether the one had somewhat more, and the other somewhat less, or whether with the one there were certain circumstances that were not with the other, this does not change the nature of the matter. Just as Abraham had the outward things that Israel had, so also Israel had the same spiritual goods, by virtue of the covenant at Horeb, that Abraham had, as we shall now go on to show in the following reason. From all this it now clearly appears that the covenant at Sinai is the very same covenant that Abraham had, and that it was, accordingly, the covenant of grace itself.
II. The second proof, that the covenant at Sinai is the covenant of grace, we set forth thus: The covenant which has all the promises and goods, and requires the inward and spiritual service, that the covenant of grace has and requires, is the covenant of grace. The covenant at Horeb has all the promises and goods, and requires the inward and spiritual service, that the covenant of grace has. Therefore the covenant at Horeb is the covenant of grace.
The first premise is granted by all, and stands firm.
The second premise is here shown: 1. The covenant at Sinai had, as a promise: I will be to you a God, and you shall be to me a people. Exodus 20:2: I am the LORD your God. Exodus 19:5: You shall be my own possession from among all peoples. Deuteronomy 26:17–18: You have avouched the LORD this day to be your God... and the LORD has avouched you this day to be his peculiar people. Now this is surely, expressly, the sum of the covenant of grace, as appears from Jeremiah 31:33: I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Hebrews 8:10). See also Exodus 29:45: And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. Compare this passage now with 2 Corinthians 6:16: As God has said, I will dwell in them.
2. God promises them in that covenant that they shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6). That this is the promise and the property of the covenant of grace appears from 1 Peter 2:5: You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. Verse 9: You are a royal priesthood. Revelation 1:6: Who has made us kings and priests unto God.
3. By virtue of this covenant they received mercy. Exodus 20:6: And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me. Forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, as appears from the Day of Atonement: Leviticus 23:28: For it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God. See also Leviticus 4:20: And the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin that he has sinned, and it shall be forgiven him. See also 2 Chronicles 7:14: Then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 1 Kings 8:34: Then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your people. One cannot object against these passages that this happened by virtue of the covenant of grace, and not by virtue of the covenant at Sinai; for besides that this is but an unfounded notion, the texts themselves show that it is by virtue of that very covenant by which the ceremonial religion was instituted.
4. By virtue of this covenant they were bound to inward and spiritual worship, and to godliness. For their law is perfect, converting the soul (Psalm 19:7). It is the law of love (Matthew 22:37). Exodus 20:6: them that love me. Deuteronomy 6:5–6: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might; and these words which I command you this day shall be in your heart. See also Deuteronomy 10:11–13. All these passages expressly show that this was by virtue of that very covenant by which they obtained Canaan as a possession. Indeed, God would not accept any of those outward services unless they were done with inward holiness — see Isaiah 1:11–18; Psalm 50:16: But unto the wicked God says, What have you to do to declare my statutes, or that you should take my covenant in your mouth? Nor would God tolerate the uncircumcised in heart in the temple. Ezekiel 44:7: In that you have brought in strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house.
Take now these things together, and it appears as clear as midday, that the covenant made at Horeb with Israel has spiritual promises, and binds to a spiritual service. And accordingly that covenant is the covenant of grace.
III. Thirdly, the question set forth above is confirmed thus: The covenant that has Christ as Mediator is the covenant of grace. The covenant at Horeb has Christ as Mediator. Therefore the covenant at Horeb is the covenant of grace. The first premise is, without contradiction, certain.
The second premise is evident from the fact that the covenant at Horeb was dedicated by blood, and administered through the sacrifices and washings and all the instituted ceremonies. Of the dedication, see Exodus 24:8: And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has made with you concerning all these words. Hebrews 9:18–20: Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people...
It is now certain that that blood, and all the ceremonies, both of persons and of other matters, made those who practiced that religion look further than the outward thing, to its antitype, and there come to their end; for the type by itself makes no sense — it is nothing at all on its own — but it makes sense when it is united with its antitype, and both are considered together. Now we know that the antitype of that blood, and of all those outward things, is Christ. Colossians 2:17: Which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ's. Hebrews 10:1: For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things. If, then, that covenant was dedicated through blood, as a type of the blood of Christ, then it had Christ as Mediator. And accordingly it is the covenant of grace.
If in anyone this thought might arise: that the blood of goats, and so forth, and all those other outward things and exercises, are set over against the blood of Christ and further spiritual realities — that the Jews had that image, that is, not Christ himself, but only a shadow, and no more, so that they stopped and ended in those shadows, and thus everything remained outward for them; and because the covenant was dedicated with the blood of calves, Christ was thereby indeed expressly excluded, and not included, and the covenant was outward, just as the dedication was outward —
I answer: 1. This is a heathenish notion; a Christian ought to be ashamed and humbled at such a thought arising in him. It would make the whole Jewish religion out to have been heathenish. Hear God speak, Psalm 50:12–13: If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Could God be served by outward blood? Would God impose upon his people an outward service, and cause them to end in it?
2. Holy Scripture teaches clearly indeed that the blood, and all those shadows, led them to Christ, and made them come to their end in him. Therefore Christ's blood is called the blood of sprinkling (Hebrews 12:24; 1 Peter 1:2). Holy Scripture also clearly teaches that Christ was offered up in all those sacrifices as in a figure. See Revelation 13:8: in the book of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. This could not be said, unless those shadows represented Christ there, through the faith of those who performed and beheld the service. Therefore Paul says, 1 Corinthians 10:3–4: that our fathers... did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. Is this the outward thing only? Surely not.
3. Holy Scripture clearly teaches that the outward thing was a figure, a parable, a likeness for that present time then. Hebrews 9:9: which was a figure for the time then present, in which they offered. Just as the water in baptism, the bread and wine in the Holy Supper, are now, for this present time of ours, figures of Christ's suffering and death, and the power thereof — would he not commit a heathenish folly who now wished to remain fixed upon this sign, and not unite the signified thing with the sign? Surely he would — and for the same reason, so also then.
4. Holy Scripture clearly teaches that they offered the sacrifices through faith. Hebrews 11:4: By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. Is there any faith unto justification except in the Mediator? Well then, Abel offered through faith, and his offering pleased God. Thus he united the type and the antitype, the sign and the thing signified, together, and had the Messiah represented to him therein through faith.
Thus it stands unshakably firm, that they might not end in the sacrifices, in the blood, and in all the other shadows, but were, through these, to look to Christ, and, believing in him, come to their end. And accordingly, since the covenant was dedicated through the outward blood, as depicting the blood of Christ, it therefore had Christ as Mediator, and has therefore been the covenant of grace.
IV. That covenant which has, for its sacraments, the sacraments of the covenant of grace, is the covenant of grace. Now, the covenant at Horeb has the sacraments of the covenant of grace. Therefore the covenant at Horeb is the covenant of grace. The first premise cannot be doubted in the least; the seal confirms the covenant.
The second premise is evident from the fact that circumcision and the Passover are sacraments of the covenant at Horeb, and that these sacraments are of the covenant of grace — who will deny that? Circumcision is expressly called the sign of the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17), and it is a seal of the righteousness of faith (Romans 4:11). The Passover already existed before the covenant at Horeb (Exodus 12), and it was Christ (1 Corinthians 5:7). Therefore the covenant at Horeb, having both these sacraments of the covenant of grace, is the covenant of grace itself.
Thus we have set forth in detail the nature of the covenant at Sinai, and have seen that it is not an outward covenant, but the covenant of grace itself.
From this many notions that one might have toward a contrary view fall away of themselves, and all doubts can, in the light of what has now been said, be readily answered.
Since this matter is of such great importance, and has such great consequences, we wish to remove all objections that arise with any semblance of plausibility from the heart, and to persuade every mind fully of the truth of this matter.
1. The first objection one may take from Deuteronomy 5:3: The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. The force of this passage is this: here is an express opposition between the fathers and themselves, and an express exclusion of the fathers from this covenant established in the wilderness. It can, therefore, be nothing else but that theirs is the covenant of grace, and that of the fathers was an outward covenant.
To this I answer: 1. Here no mention is made of any covenant with the fathers; so there is here no opposition of covenants, but at most a statement that the making of a covenant in this particular manner had not been done with the fathers.
2. If the fathers were not with them in one covenant, then neither were they with the fathers in one covenant. If one says yes, that they were, then it needs to be proved; but it cannot be proved, once one regards the covenant at Horeb as essentially a different covenant.
3. It has been shown beyond contradiction that God made with Abraham the very same covenant that he established with Israel at Sinai. Therefore there can be no essential opposition of covenants here.
4. It has been shown that the administration bears the name of covenant, so that it is only after the manner of administration that a covenant is called another, an old or new, a first or second covenant.
5. Holy Scripture indeed has the custom of speaking absolutely of things which existed only in such and such a manner or degree, and of denying them absolutely as well — which is then to be understood not with respect to essence, but with respect to circumstances. See John 7:39: The Spirit was not yet. Romans 16:25–26: According to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest. This is, as the apostle himself explains it, in such a manner and degree, in Ephesians 3:5: Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. For that the Spirit and the gospel existed before is plain — Genesis 3; Galatians 3:8; Hebrews 4:2; Psalm 51. This also serves the point, that circumcision is said to have been given by Moses, though it had already been instituted before Moses. John 7:22: Therefore Moses gave unto you circumcision (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers).
It is ascribed to Moses on account of its solemn confirmation, and that among that nation — the children of Israel — the children of Keturah and of Esau being set apart from it.
If we now take these things together, and apply them to this text, it is clear that Moses is not here speaking of the essence of the covenant, for that had already been established with the fathers; but of the manner of confirmation — "not with your fathers" is to say, not so solemnly, so publicly, so gloriously, God himself coming to proclaim it — as the following of the text itself bears out. Verse 4: The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire.
II. Jeremiah 31:31–34: Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, etc. The force of the argument lies here: an express distinction is made between the covenant that God made at Horeb and that new covenant that God would yet establish. The distinction is shown to be this: that in the new covenant God would write the law in the heart, would be their God, would give the knowledge of the LORD, would forgive sins. These things are denied of the covenant at Horeb by way of contrast. Now these are all essential distinctions. Accordingly the covenant at Horeb is essentially distinct from the new covenant, and is merely outward.
To this I answer. 1. Holy Scripture indeed has the custom of denying absolutely that which did not exist in such a degree and manner, as has been shown. But it has been shown clearly enough above that there was but one covenant among them, and that the covenant at Sinai is the covenant of grace itself.
2. It has been shown beyond contradiction that Israel, and that by virtue of the covenant at Horeb, had all these very goods which are here ascribed and promised as belonging to the new covenant, and that they were bound to spiritual exercises. Who dares deny that the godly of the Old Covenant truly had these goods? And if they had them, how then could they only afterward, after so long a time, be promised in the New Testament? See how one would then entangle oneself in one's own net. And if one says that they had them by virtue of the covenant of grace, how then is it nevertheless ascribed here to the new covenant? And where is there any word or sign of such a distinction, that they obtained it through a different covenant?
3. We have shown that if the New Covenant differed essentially from the Old, then they would in no way have had those goods in the time of the Old Covenant, and no one before the coming of Christ could have been saved — since those goods could be obtained only through the New Covenant, which, without contradiction, is in essence the covenant of grace; whereas the New Covenant, insofar as it is set over against the Old Testament, did not exist in the days of the Old Covenant, for it is called the new, the second, and is said to have come in place of the old, which had to vanish away. Accordingly, this cannot be an essential opposition, but necessarily an opposition in the degree and manner of dispensation and administration.
4. It has been shown above that the administration of the covenant bears the name of covenant, and that the covenant is thereafter called a new or an old covenant, in that it must here be taken as necessary, since the New Covenant, so far as it is set over against the Old, did not exist in the days of the Old Covenant, and yet forgiveness of sins is said to come through the New Covenant, and forgiveness of sins can be obtained only through a covenant. So that either they had no forgiveness of sins under the Old Covenant — which is untrue — or the Old and New Covenant are set against each other only with respect to administration, and it is from the manner of administration that the covenant is called Old or New.
5. Neither can anything be concluded from the word "new covenant"; for Holy Scripture calls "new" that which indeed existed before, but was set forth again anew. See John 13:34: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another."
Taking these things together, it is clear that no difference in essence is being spoken of here, but only a difference in the measure of dispensation and administration. The dispensation of grace was more sparing under the Old Covenant, reaching fewer persons; the administration was more outward and full of shadows. The greater part remained under the veil of ignorance, hanging on the outward, on the work performed, and so sought a righteousness of their own — God gave them no heart to understand, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear. Deut. 29:4.
But God promised that in the New Testament he would take away all the shadows, and would abundantly share what he had then offered them under figures — which for the most part they neither knew nor wanted, but despised — and would make the Gentiles partakers of that grace. So that these two administrations and dispensations, compared with one another, differ very greatly, and the one is rightly called the New, and is said not to be according to that covenant which God had made with the fathers.
III. 2 Corinthians 3. Here the Old Testament is called, v. 6, "the letter," and is set over against "the Spirit." Verse 7, "a ministration of death," set over against "the ministration of the Spirit." Verse 9, "a ministration of condemnation," set over against "the ministration of righteousness." So then the Old Covenant is an outward covenant, distinct from the Covenant of Grace.
To this the answer is: 1. Here no opposition of covenants or testaments is revealed at all; nothing at all is said of them. Rather, here is an opposition between the letter and Christ — for Christ is the Spirit, v. 16. So that it is very clear that Paul strips the outward things and shadows away from the antitype, and shows what they are apart from Christ.
2. He speaks expressly of the ministration of the letter — that is, of the outward and shadowy alone — and of the ministration of the Spirit, that is, of Christ as the antitype, unto justification and sanctification.
3. If there were here an opposition between the Old and New Covenant, then in the whole Old Covenant they would have had no Christ at all; for the letter was without him.
4. If by "the letter" one understood the ministration of death and condemnation to mean the Old Covenant, then it was a covenant of condemnation and not a covenant of promises. And would they willingly, knowingly, and with contentment have let themselves be brought into a covenant of condemnation? Far be it from them.
5. To understand this passage rightly, one must observe with what people the Apostle had to do, and what his aim was. He had to do with the Jewish nation, upon whom, by a righteous judgment, a veil of ignorance lay, so that they could not look steadily upon the end of that which — namely, the ceremonies — was being abolished, which end is Christ, the body of the shadows, the soul and signified reality of all those outward things, Col. 2:17. And this people's minds were hardened — see v. 13, 14 — they could not unite the types with the antitype, but remained hanging on the outward things and on the work performed regarding them, as though that were true religion, and as though by those outward exercises of the moral and ceremonial law they could obtain salvation. See Rom. 9:31, 32: "But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law." So that their religion was an altogether outward service, estranged from Christ, contrary to God's own institution, who had given them a spiritual service, as has been shown above — through their own error, separating what God had joined together, and twisting the right use of it to a wrong end.
The Jews converted to Christianity still clung strongly to this; they wished ever again to turn back to the ceremonies, to circumcision, to the Jewish feast days, and so on, as can be seen throughout Paul's epistles — Rom. 10, Gal. 5. By this they showed clearly that they did not rightly understand the ceremonies, that they too remained standing in those outward things and exercises, and thought to please God by their performed work, and that they did not unite the types with the antitype; for otherwise they would have seen that the ceremonies were now of no benefit, since the body of those shadows, Christ, was now already present.
Against this the Apostle contends throughout, and shows what the shadows and all the outward things and exercises, cut off from Christ, were in themselves — namely, of no benefit, indeed harmful — and therefore he shrinks from them and speaks hard words of things which, in their own time, and in their right, spiritual use, were blessed means of humiliation, faith, hope, love, and the like.
And just as one could thus distinguish letter and Spirit in the Old Testament, so one can now do the same in the New Testament: to go to church outwardly, to make confession, to avoid sins and do good works — this is nothing at all when one does it without faith in the Lord Jesus, as many so-called Christians follow the Jews in this, remaining hanging in the letter and never pressing through to the Spirit.
From all this it is now clear enough that the Apostle here does not set the Old and New Covenant against one another, but considers the outward thing in itself, as against the Spirit, which is Christ. And that the outward thing, considered in itself, is only a ministration of death and condemnation, but that Christ, rightly and spiritually used — as happens much more clearly and abundantly, in degree and in the number of persons, under the New Covenant — is a ministration of righteousness. And so this passage concludes nothing at all in favor of an outward covenant.
IV. John 1:17: "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Here, one might think, it is expressly shown that Moses, by whom the law was given, did not give grace and truth, but that these were first given through Christ.
The answer is: 1. That Christ, yesterday — that is, in the Old Covenant — was also present. Heb. 13[:8]. That he was slain from the foundation of the world, 1 Pet. 1[:19-20]. And it has been shown that all those shadows even then set Christ before them unto justification, and so contained him within themselves. So that here one may make no opposition between the Old and New Covenant with respect to their essence and the reality itself.
2. From this text it follows only that they did not have grace and truth through Moses. Moses had to say, as John the Baptist once said: Matt. 3:11, "I indeed baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Moses handed to them both the moral and the ceremonial law, and preached Christ to them — that he would come — but not that he had come, and could not give them the reality itself; that Christ gave, who came in the fullness of time, only, in the days of the New Covenant, in a manner especially as it was, in the days of the Old Covenant, to the believers. So that here there is no semblance of ground for an outward covenant.
V. Gal. 2:15-21: "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.... If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." Gal. 3:1-6: "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" The force seems to lie in the constant opposition of law and grace. And if the law — which was the law of the covenant with Israel — is set against grace, then surely it cannot be the Covenant of Grace, for grace cannot be set against grace. And again, the law is set against the preaching of faith, and by the receiving of faith the law is taken away, and the opposing preaching of faith is credited instead. And so it appears that the covenant at Horeb is an outward covenant, distinct in essence from the Covenant of Grace.
To this the answer is: 1. The Apostle here does not, properly speaking, set the Law and the Gospel against one another, but the works of the law against faith, righteousness by the law against righteousness by Christ, the works of the law against the preaching of faith. And if the Law and the Gospel are not set against one another, still less then is the covenant at Horeb, the Old Covenant, set against the New.
2. And even if Law and Gospel were set against one another, it would not follow that there is such an essential difference of covenants; for Law and Gospel are not covenants, but belong to the administration of the covenant — not each to a different covenant, but both to the same covenant.
3. The law may be considered either in its substance, so far as it comprises the perfect demand of the covenant of works, or in its end, for which it was given by God to his church. In its substance it serves only to convict the sinner of sin and to condemn; in its end, for which it was given by God to his church, it is a schoolmaster unto Christ, just as the whole ceremonial law also led that way. v. 24: "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." See then, the law, in the end for which it was given, is surely leading toward Christ and toward faith; so that it is clear the Apostle does not set the law, with the aim for which it was given on Sinai, against the Gospel, nor indeed against the preaching of faith. Rather the Apostle sets himself against the Jews, who twisted the true end of the law, and sought to establish their righteousness before God out of the works of both the moral and the ceremonial law; these the Apostle convicts of erring, that they could not be justified in that way, and that they had not obtained faith out of the works of the law — not through the right use of the law.
VI. Gal. 4:23-26: "But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this, namely Agar, is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." The force lies in this: that this covenant at Sinai, with all her children, is said to be fleshly, and is set against the spiritual covenant of the New Testament.
The answer is: 1. That from the word "covenants" no conclusion can be drawn as to properly so-called covenants, for it also denotes, improperly, whatever in some respect resembles a covenant, as has been shown above.
2. The law given on Sinai may be considered in its substance, as comprising a perfection, and the demand which Adam before the fall was bound to keep on the promise of life and the threat of death. One may consider it in that sharper ministration in which that demand was often set forth, unto the conviction of that stiff-necked people, and whose curses were repeatedly pronounced for their warning. One may consider it as the Jews (the godly excepted) generally took it up. Or one may consider it in its true end, for which it was given by God at Sinai — namely, to be a schoolmaster unto Christ, and to serve the covenant partners as a rule of holiness by which to order their lives thereafter.
3. The carnal Jews regarded that covenant at Horeb as a covenant of works; they did not view the law as a schoolmaster unto Christ, and could not see through the shadows unto him. They entered into that covenant only in an outward manner, and sought their righteousness through the outward work performed. See Rom. 10:3: "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." Gal. 5:4: "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace."
4. The Apostle's aim is to draw the Jews converted to Christianity, who still clung strongly to that error, away from it, as we see, v. 21: "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?" — and to show them what an unfruitful and harmful way it was to remain hanging in the outward and to seek one's righteousness from the law; so he sets forth the two figures, Hagar and Sarah — Hagar for the outward work of the law given on Sinai, and Sarah for the spiritual reality of that same covenant.
Hagar, bearing a son by the ordinary course of nature, is a figure of all outward Jews, who according to the flesh descend from Abraham, but for that reason have no share in grace — as Paul says, Rom. 9:6-8: "For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." Hagar, bearing Ishmael by the course of nature — who was a godless mocker — is a figure of the outward people of Abraham, who were godless, and persecuted those who are after the Spirit, and who never come to spiritual wisdom, but remain servants of sin and slaves of the devil, and are cast out into outer darkness — just as Paul applies this to that people, now, in the days of the New Covenant, when the believers had already gone out from the Jewish church, and they themselves had altogether become mockers and persecutors of the godly, forsaken, corrupted, and shut out by the Lord. V. 25, "Hagar... answereth to Jerusalem which now is." V. 29, "As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." Hagar, then, is a picture of the seed of Abraham only after the flesh — that is, those who are descended from him according to the body, and who enter the covenant only outwardly, and seek their righteousness in the works of the law, and so never obtain it, but are condemned.
Sarah, who bore by promise, is a figure of the spiritual seed of Abraham — whether they be descended from Abraham after the flesh or not — in the days both of the Old and of the New Testament. She is a figure of the Jerusalem which is above, which is free, the mother of all believers. V. 26. These, being believing and godly, are free from all spiritual slavery, are children, remain in the house, and are heirs of the promises.
And so the Apostle powerfully convinces the converted Jews that their natural descent, by which they supposed themselves free, was as it were not of Hagar but born of Sarah, and that the outward entering into the covenant, and seeking their righteousness from the law, could be no support of their confidence, and could not bring them freedom and salvation, since those who had only that were, spiritually, no more than Israel, the son of the bondwoman, who was cast out. So we see, then, that no ground for an outward covenant appears here.
5. Hagar cannot picture an outward covenant; for the godly too were within that outward covenant, and so the godly would then have been at once both of Hagar and of Sarah — at once godless Ishmaels, mockers, persecutors of those who are after the flesh, no heirs but to be cast out, and at the same time sons, true godly ones. This being absurd, that construction is likewise absurd.
But it stands written, v. 23, that Hagar, bearing after the flesh, is a figure; and v. 29 a distinction is made between being born after the flesh and after the Spirit.
Answer: It does not follow from this that there is a fleshly and a spiritual covenant, but that of the covenant partners, some — having a right to it only by natural birth, and being obligated to it — do it only outwardly, while others, through faith, enter into it in a spiritual manner. This is enough on this passage.
VII. Heb. 7:22: "By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament." Heb. 8:6: "But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." The force would lie in this: that the New Testament is said to be a better covenant, having better promises. Since now the New Covenant has spiritual promises, the Old Covenant is then an outward covenant, having outward promises.
Answer: 1. From this it would at most follow that the Old Covenant was not so good a covenant, and did not have such good promises; but it does not follow that the Old Covenant was only outward. For "better" means not only that which is better in substance and essence, but also that which is better in circumstances. For example: someone has made a will, but it is expressed obscurely and disputably; he takes it away and makes another of the same content, but improves the wording and states it more clearly — that is then another document, and one says the latter is better than the former. Again, "better" does not mean only that which is better in kind, but also that which, remaining the same in kind, is better in degree. A father promised each of two children an apple, but to one a better one — that does not mean the lesser one is not an apple at all. So it is here too: the New Testament is better than the Old Testament, not in essence — for it is the same, as has been shown above — but in manner; it is now set forth more clearly, without shadows, and as already fulfilled; and the blessings are shared with more persons, and in a more abundant measure.
2. The Apostle sets the outward shadows and the ministration against the antitype — and this, considered in itself and abstracted; setting it forth thus, he calls it a law of a carnal commandment, that it made nothing perfect; but that the bringing in of a better hope [followed]; and he ascribes to it weakness and unprofitableness, and calls it faulty. And no wonder — for in all those things the essence and the reality itself was not present. Over against this he set the reality itself, which is incomparably better. So the opposition of the type and the antitype, of the outward thing that casts the shadow and the spiritual thing that is shadowed forth, which together first make up a complete sense, and therefore — though the mind may separate them in thought — may not be separated in practice, see p. 351, cannot make two essentially distinct covenants.
3. For further confirmation of this answer, add what we showed above, p. 351, namely: if the Old Covenant differed essentially from the New Covenant, then no one before the time of Christ could have been saved — since the New Covenant, so far as it is set against the Old, came only after the Old, and did not exist before. And note also that it is the administration that bears the name — see p. 337.
Here still another difficulty seems to arise: the Lord Jesus is said to be the surety and mediator of that better covenant; therefore, he not being a surety of that other covenant, that other covenant must necessarily have been an outward covenant.
Answer: 1. Since the word "better" does not posit two covenants, as has now been shown; and since the Old and New Covenant are one in essence, as has also now been shown — it follows of itself that Christ, being called the mediator of a better covenant, is not thereby set against a second covenant of which he would not be the mediator.
2. Christ, being the mediator of the covenant of grace, is set against the persons who formerly, under the old administration, prefigured him — namely, the priests and their doing, which was only alongside outward things; whereas Christ's doing, being spiritual without the outward things, compared with theirs — Christ has not ministered the old administrations, but the new administration and the reality itself. And so he is mediator of a better covenant, beginning from the reality itself and from the spiritual administration of it.
VIII. Heb. 12:18-20: "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (for they could not endure that which was commanded)... But ye are come unto mount Sion," etc. Heb. 12:27: "And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." The force would be this: that a plain distinction is made in the manner of giving — the first so dreadful, that the Israelites begged that the word not be spoken to them any more, that they could not bear what was commanded there, and that the first covenant is said to be shakeable. All of which cannot apply to the sweet, light, and unshakeable Covenant of Grace. Therefore it must be another covenant in essence, and an outward covenant.
Answer: 1. Here nothing at all is said of a covenant; neither the name nor the thing is mentioned.
2. And even if it were — we have now shown many times that the administration may well bear the name of covenant, so that in the end one cannot draw a sure conclusion from that word alone, without other circumstances.
3. It is plain in itself that these texts speak of the manner of giving and of administering. And why should the dreadful manner of giving be at odds with the Covenant of Grace? God knew what kind of people he had to deal with, that most of them did not truly deal with him, but lied to him; and God knew how faithlessly that nation would deal with him. These were to be aged — startled by these dreadful signs, and frightened away from their insincerity; also, since the Lord had given the law to be a schoolmaster unto Christ, the dreadful manner of giving served to that end, so that they should not remain standing on the law itself, but should be driven by it to the Messiah, the end of the law. Rom. 10:4.
4. That they begged the word might not be spoken to them any more cannot be said of the reality itself, not even if one considered it merely as an outward covenant; for that would then be as much as begging that God would not be God, and that they might depart from the covenant made and not be God's people. Rather it looks to the manner of giving, that it might not happen so dreadfully, but through the means of Moses; see Exod. 20:19.
5. That it is said they could not bear what was commanded there is true when one looks at the things commanded apart from a mediator. We too cannot bear it even now — therefore we need the surety. But it speaks of the dreadfulness of the proclamation; there something like this is expressly added: "if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart." Israel appears to us here as, according to their own understanding, having to die if God went on to speak to them in such a manner, and therefore they could not bear it. Exod. 20:19.
6. That the days of the Old Testament are said to be shakeable looks not to the essence but to the administration, which was only to remain until the time of reformation, and no longer. The body being present, the shadows were no longer of use. We too have here no continuing city, Heb. 13:14 — do we therefore have no essential and everlastingly abiding blessings? So too, their state of administration was changeable; it does not follow from that that the reality itself was changeable.
IX. That covenant into which an entire nation, head for head, godless and godly alike, entered, and were within it, and of whose sacraments each and every one had to partake, and out of which one could fall, and indeed did fall — that covenant is not the Covenant of Grace, but an outward covenant.
But the covenant at Horeb was such a covenant. Exod. 19:8: "And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do." Gen. 17:10: "Every man child among you shall be circumcised." Jer. 31:32: "which my covenant they brake."
Therefore the covenant at Sinai is an outward covenant.
I answer: 1. One must distinguish between truly entering into a covenant, and doing so only in appearance and outwardly. The Jews did not all truly enter into that covenant, nor were they all truly in it; for "they did flatter him with their mouth" and "were not steadfast in his covenant," Ps. 78.
2. It is beyond all doubt that all who are drawn by the gospel to the Covenant of Grace — every one, none excepted, however godless he may be — are obligated to go out from themselves, the world, and the devil, and truly to give themselves over into that Covenant of Grace; for they that obey not the gospel shall suffer everlasting destruction. 2 Thess. 1.
3. Besides, it cannot be denied that many truly unregenerate people have given themselves over into the New Covenant, and daily still give themselves over into the covenant; the spiritual teacher may take heed as much as he can, since there is indeed no other covenant now than the Covenant of Grace, so that he who gives himself into the covenant aims at that very covenant by which he might be saved — so they give themselves into the Covenant of Grace, although not truly and in a spiritual manner, whether through ignorance or through worldly-mindedness, but do so only outwardly. And so they have no benefit of it beyond being counted among God's people, being loved by them if they can feign it well; the teachers are bound to watch over them, to lead, instruct, warn, and admonish them, and they also share meanwhile in the outward blessings which God sometimes gives to his church.
4. It is certain to all that no one under the ministry of the gospel may go along however he pleases, free to be baptized or not, or to go to the Lord's Supper or not; but that they, if they despise or disregard the sacraments and so neglect them, sin greatly; and that everyone under the ministry of the gospel is bound, on pain of God's wrath, to give himself to the use of the sacraments — not such as he is by nature, for then he would eat and drink judgment to himself — but he is bound truly to enter into the Covenant of Grace, and so, as a right covenant partner, to use the seals which Christ has ordained only for his believing people. And if he has entered into the covenant, he may not neglect the use of the seals; and if he remains refusing, the church must exercise discipline over him.
5. It is also plainly known that many of those who believed only for a time do fall back, and make shipwreck of the faith — not that they fall out of the Covenant of Grace, for they never were truly in it, but they had only conducted themselves somewhat as if they were, deceiving themselves and others. And now falling away, they fall away just as they had entered into it — that is, they show by their falling that they depart from the covenant, and that they never rightly understood or meant it, but had only feigned it.
Taking these things together, the difficulty of the objection raised above is wholly removed, and we see that the Covenant of Grace may well be that into which a very great multitude of unregenerate persons are obligated to give and betake themselves, and to be converted; and to which many, in whom God has no pleasure, are given, though only outwardly; and to whose sacraments the right use is required of everyone under the ministry of the gospel; and from which many, who had betaken themselves to it only outwardly, fall away. Accordingly, one cannot conclude from these things that the covenant at Horeb was an outward covenant.
The syllogism would stand thus in force: That covenant into which an entire nation, head for head, godless and godly, as godless — being godless and remaining godless — had to enter, and in which they, being and remaining such, also were, and of whose sacraments every one, godless as godless, had to partake, and out of which — having truly been in it — one could fall, that is an outward covenant. That much is certain. But the covenant at Horeb was such a covenant — that is flatly denied, and will never be proven. The contrary we have clearly demonstrated.
God had established the Covenant of Grace with Abraham, and in him with his seed through Isaac and Jacob; so then all parents, by virtue of that covenant, were bound to give their children over to God within that covenant, and as soon as those children came to knowledge of that covenant, they were bound to rejoice over that blessing, that from infancy they had been given over into that covenant, and were bound to betake themselves into that covenant with true willingness. God, having led Israel to Horeb, renews this same covenant with them; he sets it before them, asks whether they desire it, they all answer yes, and give themselves into that covenant (though the greater part did not mean it rightly) — and so they were obligated, on pain of being cut off, to use the sacraments, yet in a spiritual manner. And no one might keep them from these, since by their confession before men they were entitled to them, and the neglect of the use of the sacraments was a sign of contempt, and so they would then, as despisers of the covenant, be cut off and rooted out. And just as they did not rightly mean it when they gave themselves into it, so many of them also made little difficulty of breaking the covenant and rebelling against God and his service.
X. The covenant at Horeb seems to be an outward covenant, and a covenant essentially different from the Covenant of Grace, since it was shadowy and figurative, being consecrated by outward blood, and having earthly promises, outward commandments and outward obedience, outward reconciliation and forgiveness of sins, an outward mediator, outward sacraments, an outward sanctuary, and an outward service.
The answer is: 1. If this inference were sound, one could conclude in the same way that the New Covenant too was an outward covenant — for in the New Covenant every person is consecrated by outward water in baptism. And both sacraments have as many outward signs as under the Old Testament. The New Testament also has outward promises. Matt. 6:33: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Eph. 6:2, 3: "Honour thy father and mother... that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth." 1 Tim. 4:8: "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." The New Covenant also has an outward service, namely confession, presenting the body as a sacrifice, Rom. 12:1, and glorifying God also in our bodies, 1 Cor. 6:20, etc. Therefore, on account of these outward things, the New Covenant may not be reckoned an outward covenant; so it is plain that the syllogism given above does not hold.
2. Rather one should conclude thus: that covenant which has only outward things, and ends in those outward things, is an outward covenant — that would be true. But the covenant at Sinai, though it had outward things, did not have outward things only, but also, and principally, spiritual things; and the outward things did not end in the outward things, but ended in their spiritual sense and signification. That the figures or shadows enclosed the antitype and the body itself within them, and that the covenant partners had to see and enjoy by faith what was contained therein, has already been shown.
The Old Covenant had, alongside earthly promises — which the New has just as much as the Old — also heavenly and spiritual promises, as has been abundantly shown; even Canaan was Immanuel's land, and signified to them the spiritual reality.
The Old Covenant was indeed consecrated with blood, but the blood of the beasts represented the blood of the coming Messiah, and did not at all end in the blood of the beasts — just as the water in baptism, and the bread and wine in the Holy Supper, do not end in those outward signs. That blood made up no complete sense except as it was united with the blood of Christ; therefore the blood of Christ is called the blood of sprinkling, Heb. 12:24, 1 Pet. 1:2, looking to the manner of dealing of the typifying blood. See on this more fully and forcefully p. 361 and 362.
That the Old Covenant had only outward commandments and required only outward obedience is a thought fitting a Socinian heathen (if it were not even too crude for one of them) rather than a Christian. It was a law of love, Matt. 22, the most perfect law, Psalm 19, on whose perfect keeping eternal life was promised, and it required indeed an inward, spiritual love and fear. All this is clearly shown on p. 351.
That the Old Covenant should have had only outward reconciliation and forgiveness of sins is dreadful to contemplate. It has been plainly shown on p. 351 that the believers under the Old Covenant not only had true forgiveness of sins, but had it by virtue of that very covenant at Sinai. God is a God of truth, and does everything in truth; he never forgives sins in appearance only, while still holding them in reality — but when he forgives, he forgives from the heart. That it stands written, Heb. 9:9, 13, that the sacrifices could not make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the conscience, but sanctified to the purifying of the flesh — that does not say they had no true forgiveness of sins by virtue of this covenant, but that those outward things could not bring this about by themselves, and that it came about through the antitype, Christ. Those outward things, considered only in themselves — as the majority of the blinded Jews considered them — reached only outwardly, and before men. Just as under the New Covenant, when someone who has fallen comes to the congregation, confesses his sins, and shows himself penitent, and is then regarded and treated as such by the congregation, whether the fallen one does so truly or in pretense is a matter between him and God; so also under the Old Covenant, by that bringing and offering of those beasts they showed their penitence and faith in the Messiah, and thereupon were admitted to the outward worship. If anyone did not do this with a sincere heart, that was upon him.
Moses was not an outward mediator of the covenant. He was never called a mediator of the covenant, but rather "the mediator," Gal. 3:19, 20 — but nowhere a mediator of the covenant. He indeed carried the words of God and of the people back and forth, but he did not make the covenant, nor did he stand surety for it; and in what he did he was a figure of the Lord Jesus, as were also the other prophets, priests, and kings, so that he, united with his antitype, first makes up a complete sense.
That the Lord Jesus himself is the mediator of that covenant we have sufficiently confirmed on p. 353.
That they had outward sacraments, outward service, an outward sanctuary — that does not mean that these things did not end in themselves, or that one who practiced that worship had to end in those things with his thoughts and affections. No — God is a Spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth; that held as much place in the Old Covenant as it does now in the New. It is unfitting to think of that Holy God, that an outward service, ending in those outward things, should have been commanded by him, or acceptable to him. A man requires the heart of his servants; how then should God not require the heart? Should the invisible God take pleasure in visible things? Our sacraments too are now outward, yet it is far from the case that they therefore end in those outward things — and so it was likewise with the sacraments and sacrifices, etc., in the Old Covenant. God indeed delayed the plague upon Ahab's outward humbling, but not by virtue of any covenant that promises blessings for outward things, but through his long-suffering toward sinners. That this happened on the occasion of his outward humbling shows that God thereby demonstrates that there are degrees of wickedness, and that God still deals differently with the utterly reprobate wicked than with those who still, in a natural manner, acknowledge and serve him — and such is God's dealing still now under the New Covenant, as it was then under the Old. The whole ground of the preceding line of thought is this: that, in a Jewish manner — the manner of those upon whom the veil lay — one separates the outward things from the inward signified reality. But how far amiss that is we have shown and confirmed forcefully enough above.
The censure or discipline of the Jewish church was not bodily: to be cut off from his people involved a great deal. He who was cut off lost his right to Canaan, Immanuel's land; lost his right to the temple and the whole service of God; lost his right to eat of the sacrament of the Passover; and so at the same time lost his right to Christ and all the spiritual blessings which those shadows pictured. And he was reckoned as a heathen. On which see Matt. 18:17.
So then, we think, we have clearly shown that the covenant at Sinai is not an outward covenant, essentially distinct from the Covenant of Grace, but the Covenant of Grace itself. Upon what a sandy foundation would he build who wished to build a church upon these mistaken notions — truly, not only would storms and downpours cast the whole structure down, but even the sunshine alone would overturn it.
Question V. Whether the ceremonies of the Old Testament are simply blessings of God, or whether they were imposed as a punishment for Israel's golden calf.
I answer: God caused his church to grow by degrees. The time from Adam to Abraham is to be regarded as its childhood; the time from Abraham to Christ, its youth; the time after Christ, its manly strength. Each of these states has its particular degrees, by which the church differed in each period; so that this second state, in which the church was under the seed of Abraham, is not less than the first, but much more so — and the ceremonial service in that time was not a punishment, but a special blessing. This appears from these reasons.
1. The Apostle Paul sets it forth as a special privilege of Israel, and as a great honor for those who might themselves be a shadow or figure, and might minister the shadows — see this in Rom. 3:1, 2: "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way." Add to this Rom. 9:4: "Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." Add further Heb. 5:4: "And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron." Now, is such an advantage, such an honor, a punishment? Is that not rather a great blessing?
2. The godly Israelites acknowledged the entire ceremonial service, and all its parts, not as a punishment, but as a special blessing of God; for they felt pain when they were deprived of that service and could not perform it. This their laments show — see among so many, Ps. 79, Ps. 80, Ps. 102. David lamented bitterly over it, Ps. 42:4: "When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God." They longed greatly for the exercise of the ceremonial worship, Ps. 42:1, 2: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" Ps. 27:4: "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple." From the ceremonial worship they drew their joy and the strength of their soul. Ps. 63:2: "To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary." They could not have their fill of it, and delighted wonderfully in it. Ps. 36:8: "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house." Ps. 65:4: "We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple." Ps. 84:1-2: "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God," etc. "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah." How glad they were when they might have that privilege! Ps. 122:1: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD." How they glorified and thanked God for this! Ps. 147:1, 19: "Praise ye the LORD... he sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Hallelujah." Now tell me — that whose absence makes one so sorrowful, which one longs for so, in which one so rejoices, for which one so glorifies and thanks God — is that a blessing or is it a punishment? I am certain your own conscience will answer for me: it is no punishment, but surely a great blessing.
3. The gospel is no punishment but simply a blessing — that everyone must grant. Now the whole ceremonial service was the gospel — not that it enclosed within itself all of the gospel, that is, glad tidings, for the prophetic word was added to it, but whatever was ceremonial was gospel — for it looked wholly to Christ and his blessings; it taught Christ with all his fullness, his suffering and dying, etc., pictured him, and sealed him; and the believers, in those shadows, laid hold of the body itself, as has been shown at length on p. 354, and everyone will fully grant this in this case. So too does the Catechism, Question 19. Wherefore I conclude that the whole ceremonial service is not a punishment, but a blessing.
4. The state of the Israelite church is said in Holy Scripture to be more excellent than the state of the fathers before the exodus from Egypt, and is set on an equal footing with Israel at Horeb before the sin of the golden calf. The conclusion follows of itself.
This appears throughout — Deut. 5:2, 3: "The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." Deut. 29:1: "These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb." Here mention is made of a covenant which God made with Israel in the plains of Moab. It is said that at that time they were exalted above the fathers, with whom the Lord had not made that covenant at Horeb — namely, not in essence, but in glorious circumstances. This covenant is said to be the same as the one at Horeb, and their state is set forth as the same as Israel's at Horeb in the making of the covenant. That it is said to be "beside" that one does not mean another covenant added on to the covenant at Horeb (as no one will dispute), but it looks to the renewal — as if Moses would say: it would have been enough that we remained in that covenant which God had made with our fathers, and so also with us, at Horeb; but the Lord has been so good that, over and above that, he made it once more with us so solemnly. So it is then plainly clear that after the golden calf Israel was not under such a punishment, and that the ceremonial service was no punishment.
5. The ceremonies were, for a very great part — indeed principally — already instituted before the sin with the calf; so they were not then given as a punishment for the sin with the calf. This is plain, in that Abel offered, and that in faith, Gen. 4; Noah knew clean from unclean beasts and offered of the clean upon an altar, Gen. 8; Abraham had an altar and sacrifice, Gen. 12 and 15; circumcision was instituted, Gen. 17; the Passover, Exod. 12; the firstborn, Exod. 13; the washings and purifications, the priests, the command to make an altar and to offer sacrifices, Exod. 20; the Passover, Pentecost, and Feast of Tabernacles, Exod. 23; the whole tabernacle with ark, mercy seat, altars, and all the furnishings of the temple, Exod. 25, 26, 27; Aaron and his sons, the priestly office, their vestments, their consecration, sin offering and burnt offering, Exod. 28 and 29; the incense offering, the laver and washings, Exod. 30 — see, God had already given all these things before the sin with the golden calf was committed, which happened afterward, Exod. 32. From which it appears as clear as day that the entire Levitical service was not a punishment on account of the sins of the calf.
Against this one or two passages seem to stand, namely:
I. Ezek. 20:24, 25, 26: "Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD." The force may be summed up thus: it is certain God gave these statutes; the moral law is that law of which it is said, "which if a man do, he shall even live in them," v. 21 — so that these statutes are not the moral law. And if they are not that law, it seems all that is left is that they are the ceremonial laws — for the ceremonial laws are called "a law of a carnal commandment," weak and unprofitable, Heb. 7:16, and "a law" which "could not make the comers thereunto perfect," Gal. 3:21. These statutes and judgments were given because they had not done God's judgments, and so as a punishment; and what sin can one think of that would come into consideration here but the sin with that idol, the golden calf? Accordingly, the ceremonial laws were given as a punishment for the golden calf.
Answer: 1. Note well that here no mention at all is made of the sin with the calf; Israel had more sins than that. Now, since it speaks of sins in general, one may not restrict it to that one; from the genus, the inference does not hold good to a certain, restricted species.
2. Note well that other sins besides that of the calf are expressly mentioned here: "all that openeth the womb," "causing to pass through the fire," having their eyes after the idols of their fathers. And what comes most into consideration here — the sin for which the punishment came, upon which these statutes were recorded — was the transgression of the ceremonial law itself (I speak according to the view of those who would bring forward this passage): namely the profaning of the sabbaths, which were truly ceremonial, apart from that of the fourth commandment. If then the transgression of the ceremonial laws was the cause of the giving of these statutes, then the giving of those laws is no punishment for sin at all; and if it happened because of the sins now noted, then it was not because of the sin with the calf.
3. This very chapter shows expressly that it was not the sin with the calf; for it shows that these statutes and judgments were not given to those who had committed the sin with the calf, and were not given immediately after it, but at another time, long afterward. Note the earlier part of this chapter: v. 10, the people are led out of Egypt; v. 11 and 12, they receive the laws of God, both the moral and, note well, the ceremonial; v. 13, their apostasy is recorded, not only with the calf, but with the whole course of their godless life, and especially the sins against the ceremonial law, the profaning of the sabbaths; v. 18, note well, the children take the place of the condemned fathers, to whom an admonition is given that they should not walk in the statutes of their fathers; v. 21, the wickedness of the children is recorded, and thereupon, v. 23, 24, etc., the punishment God exercised upon them is recorded. So it appears that these statutes and judgments were not given to those who had committed the sin with the calf — who nevertheless had already received the ceremonial laws — and were not given at that time, but long after, when the ceremonial laws had already long been instituted. So these statutes are neither the ceremonial laws, nor were they given because of the sin of the calf.
4. We have shown above as clear as day that the ceremonial laws were, for the most part, already given before the sin with the calf. So then they were not given, because of the calf, as a punishment.
5. Although the ceremonial laws, considered in themselves, apart from their antitype and their true end, could not lead to life, yet they are nevertheless righteous judgments and faithful laws, good statutes and commandments, Neh. 9:13. And the whole giving of the law, both moral and ceremonial, was a schoolmaster unto Christ, that they might be justified by faith, Gal. 3:24.
But these people's fathers had devised statutes and judgments for their idolatrous worship: see v. 18, "Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments" — and truly these were not good, and by them they could not live; and it is of these statutes that v. 25 and 26 speak.
6. And that God is said to have given these to them is to be understood thus: that God, as a righteous judge, gave them over, for their sins and idolatry, to sin, and to their idolatrous heart, to follow the statutes and judgments of their fathers. See, of such an exercise of punishment, Ps. 81:12: "So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels." And Rom. 1:28: "God gave them over to a reprobate mind." That this "giving" of these statutes and judgments must be taken in this sense is clear from Acts 7:41-43: "And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon."
From all this the mind is fully persuaded that nothing is here spoken of the ceremonial laws, but of their own idolatrous inventions, to which God, in a righteous judgment, gave them over.
II. Gal. 3:19: "Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions." Here it is said that the law was given because of transgression.
Answer: 1. There is not the least indication here that this speaks of the sin with the calf; so one may not simply assume that either.
2. Although in this chapter we do not wish to exclude the ceremonial, it is nevertheless clear from the whole drift of the passage that it looks especially to the moral law. For Paul speaks of those who, being under the works of the law, are under the curse, v. 10; by whose works no one is justified before God, v. 11; which is contrary to faith, and which promises life to those who do it, v. 12; from whose curse Christ has redeemed his own, v. 13; which was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator, v. 19. Is not all this said principally of the moral law? It is of this law that the Apostle speaks especially, of what it is for.
3. It also comes into consideration that the law of the ceremonies was, for the most part, already given before the sin with the calf; so it could not have been given because of that transgression.
4. Paul does not ask why, for what reason, the law was given, but "wherefore" — that is, to what end, to what use? If the inheritance is no longer of the law but of the promise, was the law then given in vain? Has it then no use? To this the Apostle answers: it was added because of transgressions. The little word "because of" properly signifies here not a reason "why," but an end "unto which"; it was given, then, to the end that transgression might be known, and one's own righteousness thereby stripped away, and so one might be driven to seek the inheritance by faith — as the following verses clearly show, v. 22, 23, 24: "But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.... Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." This end of the law the same Apostle shows, Rom. 5:20: "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound."
So it is then shown beyond dispute that the ceremonial laws were not given in God's wrath and imposed as a punishment for the sin of the golden calf, but that they are simple favors and blessings.
III. Acts 15:10: "to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear." Gal. 5:1: "be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Here, then, the ceremonies are called a yoke; accordingly they were no blessing, but a punishment.
Answer: 1. Was circumcision, then — which likewise belonged to the ceremonial service — a punishment? Was it that even from Abraham's time? How then is it called a seal of the righteousness of faith? Were the ceremonies a punishment after the golden calf? Were then the same ceremonies also a punishment before the calf, from Abel's time on? Surely not.
2. The gospel too is called a yoke, Matt. 11:29: "Take my yoke upon you." Who will therefore rightly conclude from this that the gospel is a punishment? So one cannot conclude a punishment from the word "yoke."
But it is called a yoke that could not be borne, and a yoke of bondage.
I answer: it was not to be borne, not through any impossibility in the thing itself — such a yoke the righteous God lays on no one — but through man's thoughtlessness and weakness. And is it a punishment to serve God? Well then, the ceremonies were acts of divine worship; it was a yoke of the service of God.
3. The word "yoke," "yoke of bondage," does not signify a punishment, but only a burdensomeness. If someone had to run two or three miles to attend a pure and powerful ministry of the gospel, would that be a punishment, or a blessing that he was still permitted to do so — even though it was burdensome? So it is here too.
One must distinguish between the work considered in itself alone, and the work united with its antitype and the power of that combined ministration. It is true that in the Old Covenant the administration, after the flesh especially, was much heavier and more burdensome than in the New, and one very easily contracted defilement here or there, so that it was not possible for man, through his own carelessness, not to fall short here or there — but this does not in the least imply a punishment, any more than the moral law was a punishment because man could not bear that either. So then, the one does not follow, and neither does the other.
Question VI. Whether the believers under the Old Testament had complete forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God, the Spirit of adoption as children, and true peace of conscience through Jesus Christ, received by their true surety through a genuine faith; or whether God, overlooking their sins and passing them by, left them in an unreconciled state, under guilt, wrath, and curse, still holding the unpaid debt against them, demanding it repeatedly by having them again and again execute a bond, and made them live under angels, priests, magistrates, and the devil, in fright and trembling and fear of death, until Christ, through his death, actually accomplished everything.
To understand this question better, the following points must be weighed.
1. When one asks whether the believers under the Old Testament had complete forgiveness of sins, one does not thereby mean that God might, or would, perhaps at some point still punish the sin in their own persons, or that God let their sins pass by without satisfaction, or as if God had not made known to them that the Messiah would in his own time pay for sins; but whether God, so long as that payment had not yet taken place, did not release and forgive them the debt, and was reconciled — such forgiveness as the word aphesis would signify, and as would have place only in the New Testament — or whether he only kept silence, bore with them, and passed over their sins until Moses, and thereafter, over and above that, continually made known to them that the debt was not paid and that he was not reconciled, and therefore made them stand afar off, denied them access to himself, daily demanded the debt, daily required a bond for that unpaid debt, and had them sign it, as it were, in the sacrifice — which dealing or forgiveness would be called paresis (a passing-over). As among men a creditor may have a debtor who has no surety — one calls such an arrangement an expromissor, who takes the debt off the debtor and onto himself, in which case the debtor is no longer liable at all, even though his bond remains until the surety has paid it; or the debtor may have a surety called a fide-jussor or adpromissor, who has undertaken to pay the debt if the debtor cannot pay, so that the debtor himself remains liable still. I say: in such a case the creditor addresses the debtor, presses him, deals harshly with him concerning the outstanding debt, so that the debtor, on account of the debt, has no good conscience, and does not dare approach the creditor with confidence, but is ashamed, troubled, and distressed. [The question is] whether God also dealt so with the believers of the Old Testament before Christ's actual satisfaction.
2. When one asks whether the believers of the Old Testament had the Spirit of adoption as children, one must not understand this as though they were not children of God, and as though they were not partakers of the Holy Spirit of God; nor whether the Holy Spirit generally gave believers under the Old Testament less light, comfort, breadth of conscience — at one time less, at another more — friendly communion with God, and spirituality and holiness, than under the New Testament — of that let no one have any difficulty. But whether the Holy Spirit did not give them that confident access to the throne of grace to say "Abba, Father," and to serve God, as a reconciled Father in Christ, with a free and childlike heart and with a joyful disposition of soul — but rather made them, as burdened with debts, stand afar off, gave them a conscience troubled by the unpaid debt, and inclined their hearts to bow themselves under bondage, to put their shoulders under the yoke of the ceremonies, and to give themselves, under angels, etc., with fright and fear, as a slave under his lord. Whether, for these reasons, the Holy Spirit was to them a Spirit of bondage unto fear; whether all this was done away with by Christ's death, after which time believers have the Spirit of adoption as children, in contrast to the believers of the Old Testament.
3. When one asks whether the believers of the Old Testament were under God's wrath and under the curse, one does not thereby mean a fatherly displeasure, nor even God's will to punish the sins in the believers themselves, as God so threatens against the wicked; but a will of God to exercise strictness, to treat them as more despised and slavish than as children, on account of the outstanding debt, and that the law still had some power of curse until Christ actually took the curse away, and so remained in some respect still in force, and that God continually made them mindful of this, and made them go about with so burdened a mind.
4. When one asks whether the believers of the Old Testament were under the lordship of angels, one does not thereby mean that they are ministering spirits of God, sent forth to keep believers and to perform other services, as God employs angels also in the New Covenant; but one would take it thus: that God, on account of the unreconciled debt, had subjected the believers of the Old Testament to angels as to lords and gods, so that the angels, as gods, should give them their commands, should defend the law of the ceremonies especially through contempt of them, with punishment, indeed with death, of those who transgressed it, so that they should ordain the lordly majesty of the priests and magistrates, to lay the yoke of the law upon the shoulders of believers through them; and that believers were bound to acknowledge the lordship of the angels, and to bow themselves under it; but that Christ, in the New Covenant, has released them from that lordship, and that he alone now retains for himself the government over his church in the New Testament, and has now made the angels fellow-servants of believers.
5. When one asks whether the believers of the Old Testament were under the lordship of the priests and magistrates, one would not thereby understand such a governance as the overseers of the church and the magistrates have in the New Testament, but that those in the Old Testament had a much greater and wholly different power: that they were as it were gods and ruling lords, and had a ruling power over the believers, who had to be subject to them as servants in the matter of religion. Believers were not permitted to draw near to God freely, but had to come first to them. They had power to demand the bond on God's behalf, to compel them to obedience under the ceremonial laws. To them, as to gods, believers had to come to understand the mind of God. These earthly gods would themselves also have been subject to the heavenly gods, namely the angels. Under this combined power Christ himself would have had to bow, until he, having overcome all things, put them all off, so that he now, in the New Testament, is alone King, alone Lord, alone Lawgiver, alone Head of the church.
6. When one asks whether the believers under the Old Testament were also subject to the devils, one does not thereby mean the assaults of the devil which he offers to believers as long as they live, and against which believers must arm themselves — which has place both in the Old and in the New Testament, Eph. 6. Nor does one mean such power as he has over the wicked of all times, who are taken captive by him at his will, 2 Tim. 2[:26]. But whether the devil, on account of the unpaid debt, had received some power from God over the godly — among other things, to cast up to them that the debt was not yet paid, and to strike them with fear and terror; but that this power has now, through Christ, in the New Testament, been taken from him.
7. When one asks whether the believers of the Old Testament lived in continual fear of death, one does not thereby mean that, having generally less light, faith, and godliness, they may also have had greater fear on that account; but whether the fear was, on other grounds, very strong and disquieting there — namely, because they had to love Canaan as a pledge of heaven, and to fear losing it; and because death stood against the promise of long life; also because they had to regard death as a punishment, and as a sign of wrath, which by the actual satisfaction was not yet reconciled.
From this explanation the question can now be understood. Coming now to the answer, we say that there is indeed a great difference between the administration of the Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament and in the New — as we shall still show at the end of this chapter — but that there is no such difference as the question mentions. And we say: the believers under the Old Testament had complete forgiveness of sins, even that which is expressed by the word aphesis; they were completely reconciled with God through Christ, who was their complete surety, who took their sins from off them and onto himself, in order to pay for them in his own time. They had the Spirit of adoption as children. They truly had peace of conscience. They did not live unreconciled, under wrath, curse, angels, magistrates, devils, fear of death.
To fully persuade the mind of these truths, we shall first confirm them from God's Word, and then relieve the mind of the difficulties which it might have through the misunderstanding of this or that scripture passage.
The believers in the Old Testament had complete forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God.
I. This is clear from plain scripture passages which not only state this plainly of the believers of the Old Testament, but even express it with the same Hebrew and Greek words with which forgiveness of sins is expressed as given to the believers of the New Testament — indeed such forgiveness as is called aphesis. To this serve:
1. All those passages in which forgiveness of sins is ascribed to the believers of the Old Testament, expressed by the word salach, which the Greeks translate by aphienai. As Exod. 34:9: "and pardon our iniquity and our sin." Lev. 4:20: "and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him." Ps. 86:5: "For thou, LORD, art good, and ready to forgive." Ps. 103:3: "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities." Add to these and similar passages Jer. 31:34: "for I will forgive their iniquity" — which is spoken of the New Testament, according to the testimony of Paul, Heb. 8, and the general judgment, without anyone's dispute. Here too stands the word salach, so that God has forgiven sins under the Old Testament in the same way as he would forgive them under the New Testament. One word expresses both forgivenesses.
2. Add to this all those passages in which the reconciliation of the Old Testament is expressed by the word kipper. As Exod. 30:15: "when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls." 2 Chron. 30:18: "the good LORD pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the LORD God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary." Ps. 65:3: "Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away." Add now these and similar passages to Dan. 9:24: "Seventy weeks are determined... to make reconciliation for iniquity." That this last passage looks to the reconciliation which came about through the actual payment of the Surety is well known. Here stands kipper. So the reconciliation which took place before the time of Christ is expressed by that same word.
3. Add to this all those passages in which the forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament is expressed by aphesis, so as to take away every thought that "forgiveness" as paresis [a mere passing-over] belonged only to the New, and this [passing-over] only to the Old Testament. See then Heb. 9:22: "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission [aphesis]." See there — did they not, in the Old Testament, have aphesis, forgiveness, in the believing exercise of the shadows, by which reconciliation for their souls took place? That this was not merely an outward work, and not merely an outward forgiveness, but an inward and true one, is the judgment of the Reformed, and has been confirmed above, p. 354.
Add to this Ps. 32:1, 2: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity." Verse 5: "and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah." This forgiveness, which David claims in his own time and for himself, the Apostle translates by aphesis, Rom. 4:7: "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven [aphethēsan]." That this belongs not only to the New Testament but also to the Old appears, besides from the reason just given, compared together, also from Rom. 4:9, 12: "Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also?... And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk," etc. See — the blessedness of having forgiveness of sins through aphesis belongs also to the circumcision, that is, from Abraham until Christ, of which time's believers Abraham is a father.
4. Add to this all those passages in which the forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament is expressed by the word nasa. As Exod. 34:7: "forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." Num. 14:19: "Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now" — namely, the true believers among them; upon the rest God was angered for forty years, and destroyed them in the wilderness, Heb. 3:17. So also Ps. 85:2: "Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people." The word nasa, used here, the Seventy [Septuagint] translators render by aphienai.
5. Add to this, that in the writings of the New Covenant, in the days of John the Baptist and of the Lord Jesus Christ, before his actual satisfaction, while the Old Testament still stood in its full force, forgiveness — aphesis — was offered and promised to believers. John the Baptist was preaching the baptism of repentance unto aphesis, forgiveness of sins, Mark 1:4. The Lord Jesus taught his disciples, before his death and resurrection, to pray, "aphes, forgive us our debts," and promised, v. 14, "so shall your heavenly Father also forgive you." He declared not only that he had power to forgive sins, aphienai, Matt. 9:6, but also said to the man sick of the palsy, "thy sins apheōntai, are forgiven thee" — and so on other occasions.
From all this it appears as clearly as anything can appear, that the believers in the Old Testament had the same, and thus complete, forgiveness of sins as under the New Testament.
II. The truth also appears thus: whoever has Christ as a surety, who has taken all their sins off them and onto himself, has complete forgiveness of sins. Now the believers under the Old Covenant had Christ as such a surety. Therefore the believers of the Old Testament had complete forgiveness of sins. The first proposition is clear and certain in itself, to everyone.
The second proposition appears thus: 1. Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, Heb. 13:8. And Christ is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," Rev. 13:8. And now, since Christ was the same in the Old Testament as he is in the New, he is that surety who took the sins off them and onto himself; for such a surety he is in the New Testament by everyone's agreement. And since his death was as truly present in the sacrifices of the Old Testament as it was when he died on the cross, he had then already taken all the sins off them and onto himself, and his death was then as powerful to take away sins as it was afterward.
2. One of two things: either Christ was no surety of the believers in the Old Testament, or he was such a surety as took the sins off them and onto himself. The reason is that no other kind of surety or suretyship can have place in the work of redemption. To show this, one must know that among men there are two kinds of surety. The one is called a fide-jussor or adpromissor, who comes to support the principal debtor, and binds himself to pay if the debtor shall not be able to pay. The other is called an expromissor, who absolutely takes over the debt, and absolutely binds himself, in the first instance alone, to payment, so that the debtor is no longer liable at all, but the surety alone — though the debtor's bond still lies there, and the debt is not yet paid. As such a surety Paul presented himself for Onesimus to Philemon, Philem. 17-19: "If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account; I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it."
That Christ is the surety of the believers in the Old Testament is well known; for otherwise no one could have been saved, since there is no other name, and no one comes to the Father but by him. Their faith, too, and their pleading for the Lord's sake, is sufficient evidence of this.
Christ, then, being a surety, cannot be a surety in the first manner, as a fide-jussor and adpromissor. This appears thus:
A. Such a suretyship has place only in money debts; but here are sins and punishments. God is regarded not as a creditor, but as a Ruler and Judge.
B. Such a surety is not an absolute surety, but only a conditional one, and it may be that the surety need not pay at all — namely, if the debtor himself pays. But Christ is an absolute surety.
C. Such a surety has place only when the principal debtor is wholly or in some measure able to pay; for if he is shown to have or to be able to do nothing, then the surety must bind himself absolutely and is liable from the first instance. Now the believers were not able to do anything.
D. In such a suretyship the debt still lies wholly upon the debtor, and payment is demanded of him, and not of the surety in the first instance; and he must pay first, so far as he is able. And since here the debt to be paid is punishment, they would first have had to suffer as much as they could, and as long as they could — which would run on into eternity.
E. By such a suretyship no one in the Old Testament could have been saved, since the debt remained lying upon them, and they remained bound to punishment. To be saved, to come into heaven, and yet to be burdened with debts and remain bound to punishment, contradict one another; and since, upon coming into heaven, they are released from sin, they must necessarily have had it taken over by the surety, since without satisfaction rendered or accomplished there is no taking away of sin.
So it appears clearly that Christ, being a surety, is not such a surety as is called a fide-jussor, who binds himself conditionally and lets the debt lie upon the debtor. So then nothing else remains but that Christ is an expromissor, a surety who takes the debt off the debtor and takes it upon himself. So the believers of the Old Testament regarded him — this faith includes. This they confessed, Isa. 53:4: "Surely he hath borne our griefs." Verse 6: "the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Verse 7: "It was required of him" — note well, when it was required of him, then he was afflicted. That Christ was this to them in power, even in that present time, appears from Rom. 10:16: "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?" — where reference is made to Isa. 53. This they showed by their confident speaking: "I know that my redeemer liveth," Job 19:25. This the preceding and also the following reasons show.
Since Christ, then, was such an absolute and complete surety of the believers of the Old Covenant, they had complete forgiveness of sins. For the actual satisfaction of the surety, whether it has already taken place or is yet to take place, is equally effectual for the debtor. The surety has taken it over; the creditor has accepted the surety and that undertaking; the debtor is no longer liable, although his signed bond still remains in the creditor's hands, for the transfer is endorsed upon it. So it is even among men — how much more does this hold in this suretyship, where the surety bound himself from eternity, with whom there is no lapse of time with God, but all that is to come is present, where Christ's death has an everlasting power.
III. Since the believers of the Old Testament were chosen from eternity, and in time were brought into the Covenant of Grace, they have had complete forgiveness of sins.
The force of this inference with respect to election lies in this: that election takes place out of an eternal and perfect love and grace. Jeremiah 31:3, "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love." Romans 9:11, 13, "That the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calls... Jacob have I loved." Romans 11:5, "A remnant according to the election of grace." Election took place in Christ, as the Mediator and Surety, taking their sins upon himself and laying his righteousness upon them. Election is accompanied by every spiritual blessing. Ephesians 1:3, 4, "Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him." It was this that David had his eye on, Psalm 106:5, "That I may see the good of your chosen."
He who is loved with an everlasting love, in whom there is no sin but sheer grace, who is in Christ, who is blessed with every spiritual blessing — he has complete forgiveness and reconciliation.
Now this the elect and believers of the Old Testament have had: they are the elect. Therefore they had complete forgiveness.
The force of the inference with respect to the Covenant lies in this: that the Covenant has within it the actual deliverance from all guilt and punishment, and the perfect satisfaction and righteousness of Christ, and complete reconciliation with God, as was shown in Chapter 8. Whoever, then, is in that covenant has a share in it. Now they were in that covenant. Therefore, etc.
The force of the inference with respect to both taken together lies in this: that there are not two kinds but one kind, one election, one single Covenant of Grace. Whoever, then, has a share in that which is but one, and is a covenant partner in that same covenant, has also the same enjoyment of it, and is in the same state. And if it be proven that the elect and covenant partners of the New Testament, by virtue of that eternal election and the Covenant of Grace, have complete forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God, then the believers of the Old Testament have that same thing by that same right — the same forgiveness of sins and the same reconciliation with God.
IV. The believers of the Old Testament were justified by faith; therefore they had complete forgiveness and reconciliation.
The first point is beyond question: do you desire a text? See Romans 4:2, 3, "For if Abraham were justified by works, he has whereof to glory, but not before God. For what says the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." James 2:23, "It was imputed to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God."
The reason for this inference is that justification is a work of God as Judge, and a work of pure righteousness, so that there must be either absolute condemnation or absolute acquittal; for the accused is either guilty, or innocent and righteous — between these there is no middle ground, and so there is likewise no middle ground in the sentence pronounced over such a one, between being justified and being condemned. One of two things, then: either the sins of believers were wholly taken from them and transferred onto the Surety, and the complete righteousness of the Surety was imputed to them, or not. If not — if it was not wholly and absolutely so — then their sins remained lying upon them, and they were wholly under the curse and eternal condemnation; they could not but be condemned, and be regarded as condemned, until such time as the Surety did for them what has just been said.
And if the Surety had indeed done this for them, then no accusation of any guilt could remain — not even in thought — but there had to be a complete acquittal. And on the other hand: if there has been justification, then there has been a complete removal of guilt and a complete imputation of righteousness, and thus complete forgiveness of sins and friendship with God have taken place. We are not now speaking of the felt experience of justification, but of the reality itself. Now this has been present. Therefore, etc.
Once more: faith is a receiving of Christ with all his fullness, whereby all the sins of a believer are laid upon Christ, and all his righteousness is received, and rest and support are taken in him as an all-sufficient Surety — so that where faith is, there righteousness is also, upon which justification follows, and consequently complete forgiveness and reconciliation. Romans 3:28, "We conclude, then, that a man is justified by faith." Now, in the Old Testament they had faith, which is "a firm foundation of things hoped for, and an evidence of things not seen." See this, Hebrews 11. 2 Corinthians 4:13, "Since we have the same spirit of faith." Thus they were freed from all sins and made partakers of the righteousness of Christ — that is, they had complete forgiveness and reconciliation.
V. If the believers of the Old Testament entered heaven before Christ's actual satisfaction was made, then they had complete forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God; for no one will dare to think that they, unreconciled, burdened with guilt, and lying under the wrath of God and the curse, could nonetheless have had complete communion with God and could have enjoyed everlasting glory. It is, then, certain that, upon entering heaven, they had complete forgiveness. And so the satisfaction not yet actually accomplished is no reason for an incomplete forgiveness, but is merely a matter of what was still to come to pass. And if in their dying, before Christ's death, they could have complete forgiveness, then they could also have it in their lifetime — just as this is indeed ascribed to them. So it is clear enough, on every side, going through the matter, that in the Old Testament they had complete forgiveness of sins.
The believers of the Old Testament had the Spirit of adoption unto children, and the peace and joy of conscience.
That is: they were partakers of the Holy Spirit, who regenerated them, gave them faith, assured them of the forgiveness of sins, comforted them, and led them to heaven with a childlike heart. We do not say that they all had an equal measure of the Spirit, nor that they all had equally great comfort at all times, nor that, on account of the sight of their sins, darkness, and weakness of faith, they were free of fear. We readily grant that the more sparingly grace was communicated, the more burdensome the servitude of the ceremonies was, and the more circumspectly they had to walk in the use of earthly things, so that they generally had more fear, and less light and comfort. But we say that they had the same childlike nature, and the same guidance, as far as its essence is concerned, as the believers of the New Testament have; and that one may not regard them as going about their whole lives so full of terror and trembling on account of outstanding guilt and a lack of reconciliation with God, on account of wrath and curse, the burden of taskmasters, angels, magistrates, teachers, the devil, and death.
This appears:
I. From all that has now been shown, it appears that they had complete forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God; for if they had these things, as indeed they had, then they also had the Spirit of adoption and the peace of conscience, whether more or less, now or then — indeed, on this ground there is no difference between the believers of the Old and of the New Testament.
II. It appears from the whole course of God's leading, and from all that God did for them. Consider this once without prejudice: God took them up into the covenant of grace and to be his children. Acts 3:25, "You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers." Romans 9:4, "Who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants." God was their God, Exodus 20:2, "I am the LORD your God." God was good to them, Psalm 73:1, "Truly God is good to Israel." God dealt with them as a Father, Psalm 103:13, "Like as a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear him." And God looked upon them as sons, Jeremiah 31:20, "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he not a pleasant child?" God justified them, Psalm 32:5, "And you forgave the iniquity of my sin." God sanctified them and renewed them after his image, Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart," "let your free Spirit uphold me." God heard their prayers, Psalm 145:18, 19, "The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear him; he also will hear their cry, and will save them." God guided them by his Spirit, Psalm 143:10, "Teach me to do your good pleasure, for you are my God: your good Spirit leads me into the land of uprightness." Isaiah 63:9, "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them, and he bore them, and carried them all the days of old."
Tell me now: does God deal any differently with the believers of the New Testament than we see, from these passages, that the Lord dealt with the believers of the Old Testament? Are there, from the days of the New Testament, any expressions different from these? He who deals so with a people — does he give them only a spirit of bondage unto fear? And would one not do violence to that goodness of God if one let one's heart set itself against this?
III. The truth of what has been set forth above appears from the description of the condition of the children of God in the Old Testament, and from what they received. They had the same spirit of faith that the believers of the New Testament have. 2 Corinthians 4:13, "Since we have the same spirit of faith." They were, now and then, well assured of the favor and love of God toward them, and rested sweetly in God. Psalm 23:1, "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." Verse 4, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Psalm 73:24, 25, "You shall guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides you." They came to God with a childlike disposition, and called him their Father. Isaiah 63:16, "Doubtless you are our Father." Isaiah 64:8, "But now, O LORD, you are our Father." Jeremiah 3:4, "Will you not from this time cry unto me, My Father, you are the guide of my youth?" They loved God. Psalm 116:1, "I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice." Psalm 31:23, "O love the LORD, all you his saints." They believed in God; see the register of Hebrews 11. They served the LORD with willingness and gladness. Psalm 119:14, "I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, as much as in all riches." Verse 16, "I will delight myself in your statutes: I will not forget your word." Verse 32, "I will run the way of your commandments, when you shall enlarge my heart." Verse 97, "O how love I your law! it is my meditation all the day." Verse 111, "Your testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart."
They had peace of conscience and joy in God. Psalm 4:7, 8, "You have put gladness in my heart... I will both lay me down in peace." Psalm 62:1, "Truly my soul waits upon God." 2 Chronicles 15:15, "And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them." 2 Chronicles 30:23, "They kept other seven days with gladness."
When the godly had lost this peace of conscience, they were greatly grieved and mourned over it — a sign that they had truly tasted it. Psalm 13:1, "How long, LORD, will you forget me forever? how long will you hide your face from me?" They kept themselves very closely in communion with God. Psalm 139:18, "When I awake, I am still with you." And to conclude, they are set before us as an example to be followed, James 5:10, "My brothers, take the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering and of patience."
What think you, godly reader — does not your heart rise up when you behold there the life of the believers of old? Do you not long to enjoy such a state of soul, and such spiritual graces, and to have such exercises? Tell me now: he who is so disposed and who so lives — has he only a spirit of bondage unto fear, or has he also the Spirit of adoption unto children and peace of conscience? I cannot but think that you will approve this with all your heart, and see that it would be unfaithfulness toward the family of the children of God to deny these things of them.
IV. If the believers of the Old Testament had the true, saving faith — as is beyond all dispute, and has been sufficiently shown above — then they had the Spirit of adoption unto children and peace of conscience, according as that faith was weak or strong, more or less. The reason lies in the very nature of faith itself: for faith receives Christ with all his fullness, gives itself over to that Christ, sets itself upon him, lays all sins upon him, and trusts and rests in him. See John 1:12, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." Hebrews 11:1, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Psalm 2:12, "Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." Isaiah 28:16, "He that believes" — that is, gives himself up, lets himself be carried, and so rests in another's power and faithfulness — "shall not make haste." From this faith blossoms peace, Romans 5:1, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And from this faith blossoms sanctification, Galatians 5:6, "Faith working through love." James 2:19, 20, "So faith without works is dead."
Take this up now: the believers of the Old Testament had faith. It follows: faith is of such a nature and power as has now been shown. Can there then be any thought raised against this, that they had the Spirit of adoption and peace of conscience? We speak of the reality of the matter, and of their being alike with us in it — not of the degree.
V. Tell me once: did the believers of the Old Testament enter heaven, or not? Surely, yes. Then I ask further: were they there still full of fear, and without the Spirit of adoption unto children? did they not have there peace of conscience and joy of the Spirit? Surely, yes. Do you see, then, that there can indeed be peace of conscience and joy in God as a reconciled God, even though their debt had not actually been paid? And what ground was there for this? Surely none other than that the Surety had taken the debt from them and had taken it upon himself — such a taking-over being, even among men, with respect to the debtor, as effectual as the payment itself.
Thus, then, we have proven the question set forth above at length, and persuaded the mind of it. It was only necessary that we establish the affirmatives, namely: that believers had complete forgiveness of sins, the Spirit of adoption unto children, and peace of conscience. That being certain, the negatives of the question fall of themselves, and it thus appears that they were not under the curse, wrath, and so forth — the untruth of which we shall show more fully in answering the Objections.
I. The first objection is Romans 3:25, 26, "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness."
The apparent difficulty lies in this: that the Old Testament is here called the forbearance of God. Where forbearance has place, complete forgiveness and full remission of all the debt has no place. To this is added that Paul calls the forgiveness which took place under that forbearance — that is, in the Old Testament — paresis, a word which means a passing-over, and which is set over against the word aphesis, which is complete forgiveness, and is applied to the days of the New Testament.
In answer: the Apostle's aim in this passage is to show that man obtains forgiveness of sins not by his own works but only through the satisfaction of Christ; see this in what precedes, and especially from verse 20 onward, continuing to verse 25.
In verses 25 and 26 the Apostle speaks of the forbearance of God as a time now past. By the forbearance of God is meant, it seems, the period during which the Church was under the Jewish administration; the present time is the time in which the Apostle now speaks, after Christ's ascension. These two periods the Apostle does not set in opposition to one another, but joins them together, and says of them both something that belonged to them in common — namely, that God, in both, has shown his righteousness by forgiving sins solely for the sake of Jesus Christ, who in the appointed time actually satisfied for the sins of his children by bearing their punishment, and who is thus set forth in both the Old and the New Testament: in the Old Testament as one who was to satisfy, in the New Testament as one who has now satisfied — in which, believers of both periods obtain forgiveness of sins, and acknowledge and glorify the righteousness of God, which could be satisfied only through the suffering of the Surety. This is plainly evident in this text.
As for the difficulty that might arise from the word forbearance, it is thus easily removed.
1. To bear with does not signify a partial forgiveness, as one might think from raising this difficulty; but when the word is used with respect to forgiveness or punishment, it stands opposed to forgiving, and excludes forgiving in that regard: what is borne with is borne with, and is not forgiven; what is forgiven is forgiven, and is not borne with — rather, it is a postponing of punishment, or a leaving unpunished for a time, which has no place with God. God is said to keep silence at the sins of the wicked, Psalm 50:21, and with longsuffering to bear with the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, Romans 9:22 — that does not say that he forgives them in any measure, but that he postpones the punishment for a while. And when God is said to bear with the godly, this has no reference to punishing or forgiving, for their sins will never be punished in them, either wholly or in part; rather, it has reference to the longsuffering of God, dealing with them as children, having compassion on them, and visiting them without severe chastisements — and this holds true in the New Testament as well as in the Old. See then: from the word bear with one cannot conclude any sort of partial forgiveness — for there is no partial forgiveness with God at all — but forgiveness either wholly, or not at all. (Justification in itself admits of no degrees, as has been shown above.)
2. The forbearance of God spoken of in our text had regard either to the wicked, or to the godly, or to Christ. Not to the wicked, one will grant, although God did bear with them in their lifetime. Not to Christ either, one will also grant, for it was not longsuffering but the wisdom of God that satisfaction was not demanded of him sooner. So one must consider whether it has regard to the godly, or has some other reference. To the godly the forbearance cannot apply so as to concern the punishing of their sins, for their sins had already been taken from them and transferred to the Surety. The Surety had already bound himself to satisfy for them, and God had already accepted the suretyship, and they were already, on that ground, justified and received into glory (see above). Indeed, a creditor no longer forbears with a debtor once a sufficient surety has bound himself to pay that debt as his own, and in the first instance. And if this had not taken place, then they would have had no forgiveness at all — they would still lie wholly under sin, wrath, curse: what is unpaid is in no way paid. If this transaction had not taken place, how then were they justified through satisfaction? how then did they enter into heaven? Or does forbearance have place in heaven, or does forgiveness of sins also take place in heaven? Or have their sins remained unpunished? Surely not at all. Therefore the satisfaction still to be accomplished was already imputed to them, of which more has been said at length in the proof above. Distinguish well between the act of satisfaction and its efficacy unto reconciliation. The act took place but once, in the fullness of time; its efficacy is the same yesterday and today, effectual from Adam even to the judgment. So then this forbearance, with respect to the punishing of their sins, cannot apply to the believers of the Old Testament either.
We must, then, see what reference forbearance has here. It has reference to the state of the Church in the Jewish nation. It was a wicked people, rebellious and continually provoking God, as we see in Isaiah 65. Yet God did not root them out, nor did he transfer his Church to another people, but let his Church still remain there, and bore with that corrupted church until the Messiah should be born and should have accomplished everything — and then he left that people, and transferred his Church to the Gentiles. In such a sense Paul also speaks of the Gentiles, Acts 17:30, "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men everywhere to repent." This is enough concerning the word forbearance.
As for the word forgiveness, which is here called paresis:
1. That does not mean a less-than-perfect forgiveness, a bearing-with, a postponing of punishment. It is not set in opposition to aphesis, with the one term assigned only to the Old Testament and the other only to the New. That is merely a mistaken notion, without any ground in the Word of God, or any warrant from the force of the word itself. This word paresis occurs but once, and that only in this one place, in the Word of God, so that the force of the word cannot be seen from the word itself; rather, the circumstances of the text must show it, and then one cannot argue from the force of the word but from the circumstances — so that one now clearly sees that nothing can be concluded from the word paresis. So the circumstances of this text do not lead us to such an imperfect forgiveness, a mere passing-over, and the like, as has just been mentioned above.
And since the word occurs but once in God's Word, one must have recourse to the Greek writers, and see how they use this word, for words gain their currency through usage. Now, they never set paresis and aphesis over against one another, as though the one meant an imperfect and the other a perfect forgiveness — indeed, we have not been able to find this, nor have we learned that anyone, in order to maintain this distinction, has ever appealed to any Greek authors; but we have learned that the linguists make no such distinction between these words, but translate the one as forgiveness just as well as the other. Indeed, even those who maintain such a distinction between the Old and New Testament acknowledge that these little words, paresis and aphesis, are sometimes used interchangeably for the forgiveness of sins in both periods, both the Old and the New Testament, and that paresis can mean the very same thing as aphesis. To this may be added that the word signifies to loosen, to unbind — from which it comes that Hebrews 12:12 says, "lift up again the hands which hang down" (pareimenas), that is, a comparison drawn from one whose sinews are slack and loose and have no strength to move the limbs; and so it is transferred to sins, and signifies forgiveness, which is a loosening and unbinding of sins. Thus we see that in the word paresis there is no force whatsoever for such an objection.
2. That which is here called paresis is called aphesis in Hebrews 9:15, "And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament," etc. Notice: in Romans 3 mention is made of the forgiveness of sins under the forbearance of God, that is, in the Old Testament; and in Hebrews 9 mention is made of the forgiveness of sins under the first testament — so in both places the forgiveness of sins at one and the same time, namely, in the Old Testament, is spoken of. And that forgiveness is called, in Romans 3, paresis, and in Hebrews 9, aphesis. So you see that the same thing is expressed by two words. It therefore means the same thing. Paresis is aphesis, and aphesis is paresis. So the difficulty over these words is gone.
3. Add to this what we have shown above, that the word aphesis is used in various places for the forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament.
4. Add to this that the forgiveness of sins is expressed in Holy Scripture by many words, such as not imputing, blotting out, not remembering, casting into the depths of the sea, forgiving, reconciling, and the like: none of these expressions are set in opposition to one another, but all come together to signify one thing — complete forgiveness.
5. Once more: suppose the word aphesis meant nothing other than a passing-over — what then? Was it then merely a sort of looking through the fingers, letting the sins lie still, neither to be punished nor remitted? Why then not an absolute passing-over through complete forgiveness? For that is just as much, and better, a passing-over than the first sort. Consider well: can God pass over sins in any other way than upon complete satisfaction? Now, to pass over sins upon complete satisfaction — is that not to forgive absolutely? And this agrees with this very text. For God is here said to forgive sins; let it be called a passing-over — it is a passing-over through hilasterion, through the propitiatory sacrifice in the blood of Christ. So this passing-over here is a complete forgiveness.
6. Lastly: even if the word paresis here meant only a bearing-with, a not-punishing, does it follow from this that the believers of the Old Testament had nothing else and nothing more? Surely not — only that this is what is here ascribed to them in this passage, without excluding what is greater and is ascribed to them elsewhere. So however one takes it, this passage has no force to establish that there was in the Old Testament only a bearing-with, a not-punishing, and not a full remission.
II. Colossians 2:14, "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross."
The apparent difficulty lies in this: that the ceremonies are called a handwriting, and that this handwriting is said to have stood against those of the Old Testament, and to have been done away only by the cross. This handwriting was not wholly against them, for it promised that sin would not be punished in them but in the Surety; but it was in some measure against them — namely, in that it confirmed that their sins were not yet paid for, and so it was to them a continual reminder, as they, each time, reaffirmed that handwriting anew by performing the ceremonial service. From this, then, it appears that they did not have complete forgiveness of sins, but were burdened and afraid on account of the unpaid debt.
In answer: 1. It is here assumed as certain, and the not-sufficiently-enlightened understanding readily concludes, that it is a hindrance to the forgiveness of sins that the punishment of sin was not borne, and the debt thus discharged; but this is a misapprehension. That this is not so appears from the following reasons.
A. Even among men this holds true. For when someone has a surety who takes over the debt as his own, then the principal debtor is free, though the debt is not yet paid, and though his bond still lies there, since the transfer has been signed thereon with the creditor's consent. If this holds among changeable men bound to time, how much more can this hold with God, to whom past and future are always present. That Christ is such a Surety has been shown above.
B. God the Father had expressly, and with many repetitions, promised the believers of the Old Testament that he would never punish their sins in them, but that he would do so in their Surety, in his Son. And the Son had, many times and quite expressly, promised them that he himself would satisfy for their sins in his own person. This needs no proof among the Reformed. Note well: God had not promised that he would one day forgive their sins, but that he would once punish their sins in the Surety. Now when, among men, a debtor has from his creditor and surety an express and often-repeated promise that he shall not have to pay the debt, that the creditor does not desire payment from him, nor ever will — can the debtor not be of good cheer, and is this not as good to him as a complete remission, unless he might fear that the creditor could change his mind? Now when God has promised this, when the Surety has promised it, and man knows that God is true — is that promise to him not a complete forgiveness? Truly, indeed. So that the satisfaction not yet actually accomplished is no hindrance to complete forgiveness.
C. God not only promised in the Old Testament that he would never demand payment from them, and would never punish them for it, but that he would exact this from his Son, their Surety — he also gave seal and pledge that he would not fail in his promises, which were circumcision and the sacrifices. Those, then, who are sealed by the true, unchangeable God that he will never punish them, but will surely punish their sins in the Surety — is that not forgiveness?
D. Holy Scripture declares that Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, Hebrews 13:8. If believers before his death did not have all that pertains to forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, comfort, godliness, and everlasting salvation, just as well as after his death, then he was not the same in both periods. But since he is the same to believers before his death as he is after his death, then surely the actual accomplishment of satisfaction does not hinder the complete forgiveness of sins.
E. Holy Scripture testifies that Christ's suffering and death, and thus the satisfaction, was so powerfully present in the Old Testament as if he there continually died and paid: see Revelation 13:8, "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." If Christ's death was there so powerful, as though it were then actually present, then surely its still being future could not hinder complete forgiveness there. They drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ, 1 Corinthians 10:3, 4. See, thus the deed still to come did not hinder its power upon the hearts of the earlier believers.
F. Add to this, that without Christ's death having yet taken place, they had complete forgiveness of sins, as has been abundantly shown in the proof of this question. From which it follows that the fact that satisfaction was not yet accomplished did not prevent sins from being fully forgiven nonetheless.
G. If they could not have complete forgiveness of sins without Christ's actual satisfaction, then they could have had no forgiveness at all, for the same reasoning holds equally against a perfect forgiveness as against a complete forgiveness. But it has been shown above that justification is not partial. If, then, they could not have complete forgiveness because satisfaction had not yet been accomplished, then neither could they, before that time, have entered heaven — for none enter heaven but the perfectly righteous, Hebrews 12:23. There one has no sins, there God overlooks no sins, there God bears with no sins, there God forgives no sins. Now since it is certain that believers entered heaven before Christ's death, it is likewise certain that before his death they had complete forgiveness of sins, and that consequently the not-yet-accomplished satisfaction could give them no hindrance.
Take now all these reasons together, and I judge that they will persuade your mind that they could indeed have complete forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament, even though the actual satisfaction had not yet taken place. This will now remove the difficulty of this passage, for it shows that the handwriting does not mean to show that sins were not forgiven, but means to convey something else.
2. Circumcision, which was likewise a ceremony, was a seal of the righteousness of faith, Romans 4:11, and all the other shadows assured believers of the forgiveness of sins; see, among others, Leviticus 4. If, then, the ceremonies were seals of the righteousness of faith, they cannot be proofs that sins were not yet forgiven, for the two stand directly opposed to one another; thus this handwriting cannot be a bond testifying that sins were not yet forgiven.
3. It is expressly denied that this handwriting has to do with the continuance and the non-forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament — there is neither word nor sign of that in the text. The Apostle warns the believing Colossians, verse 8, against the reintroduction of the ceremonies, and shows that this is contrary to Christ; and verse 11, that since Christ forgave their sins, they no longer had anything to do with the ceremonies, these having been fulfilled, completed, and abolished by the cross of Christ; verse 12 — what has this to do with the continuance and non-forgiveness of sin? Note also that nothing is said here of any signing of this handwriting, so that the text does not show that the practicing of ceremonies was a signing that their sins were not yet forgiven, and that they were not yet free from the same, but signifies something else.
4. The Apostle calls the ceremonies a handwriting by way of comparison, for the ceremonies were no piece of writing, and their observance was no written signing. Rather, it means only this: just as a handwriting declares and confirms something, so also the ceremonies declared and confirmed something. Now a handwriting is a declaration — whether of a remission, or of an obligation, or of a confession, or of a testimony. Since, then, a handwriting can be of so many kinds, one cannot conclude what kind of handwriting is meant from the bare word alone; and because it says handwriting here, one may not, on the strength of that word, say it is a receipt, nor that it is a bond, since a handwriting is of many kinds, and can in general be also a confession, a testimony, or a declaration. Rather, one must see from the circumstances of the text what kind of handwriting is to be understood here.
The ceremonies were, in themselves, truly receipts assuring believers of the forgiveness of sins, as has now often been shown. But that is not the meaning here. Their sins had already, at that time, been taken from believers and transferred to the Surety, and their sins were properly forgiven them; therefore this handwriting cannot be a bond testifying that sins were still outstanding upon them and upon their account — nor is there the slightest sign of that in this text. So the handwriting here is a declaration of something, either a confession or a testimony, and thus the handwriting says nothing to burden the ancient believers in this way.
Because the handwriting is said to be against us, to be in some measure against us, it does not follow from this that it must be a bond of unpaid debt, a reproach; for a handwriting of confession, of testimony, or of declaration of something can also be against us. So one must again go to the matter itself and to the text to see in what way that handwriting is said to be against us.
The ceremonies were not opposed to complete forgiveness, for there was complete forgiveness, and the ceremonies, which were sheer blessings, were proofs of complete forgiveness, as shown above. How, then, were they against them, and against whom were they against? Let us examine the text and attend to the circumstances.
Paul speaks to the church of Colossae, which for the most part had been Gentiles. Colossians 1:21, "And you, who were sometime alienated," etc. It was a Gentile city; Paul was in a special way the Apostle to the Gentiles. Some wished to draw these converted Gentiles to the Jewish ceremonies, for which great occasion was given by the fact that the Jews had served the true God, and their worship had been the true one, and that some therefore urged the Gentiles toward this. The Apostle warns them, verse 8, that they should not let themselves be carried away by the rudiments of the world. And to press home his warning, he shows, verse 14, that these were no longer of any use, since Christ had abolished them by his death. And in verse 20 he powerfully persuades them to abstain from this, saying: "Wherefore if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances?" Christ, by dying, abolished the ceremonies, and you, having died with Christ, now have nothing more to do with the ceremonies — rather, you are to regard Christ's death, since his life is now yours, as a fulfillment of all those shadows. So that the aim of the Apostle is to warn the believing Gentiles, and with them all believers of the New Testament, against the ceremonies.
These ceremonies he calls a handwriting that was against the Colossians, or in some way against them — under which something was quietly hidden, hypenantion, that was against them. For the use of the ceremonies was properly and principally to prefigure Christ, but there also lay under it, at the same time, something else — namely, the separation and exclusion of the Gentiles from the commonwealth of God, as we see, Ephesians 2:14, "Who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition."
So that this handwriting was against the Gentiles, and because the shadows had another principal use, it was, with reference to them, called hypenantion — meaning, remarkably, that it had something against them in it.
Or, if one applies this handwriting to the Jews of the time before Christ, it still has no force as a reproach of an outstanding debt. This holds both for the reasons already given, and also because, in that case, it would have been wholly and entirely against them, and not merely in some measure. But it was against them only in some measure: in the ceremonies, apart from that for which they existed — which was their principal end — there was something against them: the burdensomeness of the service. In this it consisted, that the one performing it was a sinner who had deserved death, that he could not give God his own ransom, that the sacrifices themselves had no power of atonement, that he had to be helped by grace through something else, and that, clothed with another's holiness, he had to be justified, and that he, as one worthy of hell, was received into grace — which must truly be a matter of shame to them and to us, though it greatly serves to the glorifying of the mercy of God. And that the promised Messiah, for whom they rightly longed in love, had not yet come. See, all this was in the ceremonies against them, and this they acknowledged as often as they performed that service — but what has this to do with the non-forgiveness of sins? What has this to do with a reproach of an unpaid debt? Nothing at all. So it clearly appears that this passage does not serve such an imagination in the least.
III. Hebrews 10:1, 2, 3, 4, 18, "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year... Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin."
The apparent difficulty is this: here it is shown that in the Old Testament there was still a conscience of sin, and that a remembrance of sins still took place every year, since the sacrifices had to be continually repeated. But in the New Testament aphesis, complete forgiveness, is shown to be present, since the sacrifices then cease. Or thus: as long as there are sacrifices, conscience of sin remains, and a remembrance of sin takes place; and consequently there is no complete forgiveness — but when there is forgiveness, the sacrifices cease. Now in the Old Testament the sacrifices continued, and in the New Testament they cease. So in the Old Testament there was no complete forgiveness — but in the New Testament there was.
In answer: 1. From such reasoning one ought not to conclude, "there is no complete forgiveness," but rather, "there is no forgiveness at all." Where forgiveness is, there is no sacrifice; therefore where there are sacrifices, there is no forgiveness; where there is conscience of sins, where there is remembrance of sin, there is no forgiveness. But besides the fact that incomplete forgiveness has no place with God, as shown above, such conclusions run wholly contrary to acknowledged truth. It is thus clear that one cannot take these words to mean that the Apostle wished to say that, with respect to the godly, there was in the Old Testament still a conscience of sin, and that a remembrance of sins as unforgiven took place, so long as the ceremonial sacrifices existed — the meaning is entirely different.
2. It is flatly denied that it is declared here that there was still, in the Old Testament, a conscience of sins, and that a remembrance of sins as unforgiven took place with respect to believers. Examine the passage carefully, and see whether any reason presents itself to support such a notion; do not let yourself be taken in by the mere sound of the words, but attend to the sense. It is true that the Apostle speaks of conscience of sins, of remembrance of sins, of forgiveness of sins, of the sacrifices that were offered in the Old Testament — but he does not say that the believers, of whom the question is, had that conscience of sin, that God remembered their sins against them and again brought them forth as unforgiven, that their conscience thought of the same with terror. Rather, note well, he says only that, by virtue of those sacrifices considered in themselves, and separated from — indeed set over against — the sacrifice of Christ, a conscience of sin still had to remain and occur. That something is stated in some respect must not therefore be applied to every respect; that is a matter of plain reason.
3. The Apostle's aim, and the thread of his argument, show that the Apostle means to say something altogether different. The Apostle, addressing people who put stock in the ceremonial service and sacrifices — as is known to you, and as has now often been shown — sets the ceremonial sacrifices of the Old Testament over against the sacrifice of Christ. Of the first he speaks in verses 1, 2, 3, 4, as recounted above. Then, of the second he begins to speak in verse 5, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore, coming into the world, he says, Sacrifice and offering you would not, but a body have you prepared me." And so on.
Concerning the sacrifices of the Old Testament: the Apostle declares that they had, in themselves, no power at all to take away sins, that they could never make perfect those who came thereby, verse 1. Of this he gives the reason in verse 2, and says that otherwise they would have ceased to be offered. But how is that a reason? Did not men continually sin again, and even if they had already been cleansed from yesterday's sins, would they not surely need to be purified again from today's sins, and would they not then need sacrifices again? The Apostle shows that this is indeed a powerful reason: for the sacrifice that was to cleanse had to be so mighty that it took away all sins, past and future alike, and made the sinner, the person, permanently righteous in the judgment of God. If, then, the sacrifices of the Old Testament had had power to take away sins, then by virtue of that sacrifice there would have remained no conscience of sins at all in those who had offered it — once cleansed is cleansed, and so repetition would have had no place. Note well, then, that the Apostle does not say that believers had a conscience of sin, but means to say that, by virtue of those sacrifices — if they had been powerful enough — they would have retained no conscience of sin, having once been cleansed.
But in verse 5 he shows that the same sacrifices were, year by year, repeated again — and by that repetition the sacrifices declared that they had not taken away sins; this they taught by their being repeated, and so a remembrance of sin took place, showing that though the sacrifice had indeed been offered, it had nevertheless not taken away the sins. And thus the sacrifices pointed men away from themselves, and directed them to Christ, that they might be cleansed, not by them, but by his sacrifice, which alone can cleanse the conscience from dead works.
Note well here that the Apostle continually keeps to the ceremonial sacrifices and to their power, so that one, too, must keep one's thoughts fixed on the same; and if one departs from this, one will necessarily wander off into thoughts contrary to the Apostle's meaning.
But one might think: did not, nevertheless, a conscience of sin remain, since the sacrifices did not have the power of cleansing? I answer: with respect to those sacrifices, the conscience of sins would indeed have had to remain, had it not been cleansed by that other sacrifice which was there present in power, and which is the same yesterday and today. The Apostle speaks of what would have occurred with respect to those sacrifices, and of what remained for those who stood still within those sacrifices alone — but he does not speak of the believers who, by faith, looked to Christ's sacrifice and were cleansed by Christ's blood.
But one might further think: did not, nevertheless, a remembrance of sins take place every year? I answer: no remembrance of sins took place with respect to the sins of the children of God, as a reproach, imputing the sins to them, being angry over them; nor did any remembrance of sin take place in the conscience of believers, as of something still outstanding and unreconciled, except as arising from their weakness of faith. They were cleansed by Christ's blood. But the sacrifices brought sins to remembrance in the sense that they had not been taken away by their own power — which means nothing other than that the sacrifices could not do this; they showed their own powerlessness. It is in this respect alone that the Apostle speaks here, as has now been shown, and as will further appear from the second part of the comparison.
This, then, is the Apostle's syllogism: the sacrifices that had to be repeated could not take away sins, verse 1. The reason for this is given in verse 2 — namely, that if sin and the conscience thereof had been taken away by them, repetition would have had no place. But the sacrifices in the Old Testament were repeated, and by their repetition showed their own powerlessness, verse 3. Consequently it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins, verse 4. This is the first part of the comparison.
The second part is the sacrifice of Christ. This is set over against the ceremonial sacrifices, verses 5–10; and with respect to its acceptableness with God above them, verses 11, 12, 13; and with respect to repetition — the one often repeated, this one never repeated, verse 14; and with respect to its power, perfecting forever, by one offering, those who are sanctified. This the Apostle confirms in verses 15, 16, 17, with the testimony of the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 31. This proof from the prophet the Apostle applies in verse 18. The force of the application is this.
If Christ, by his sacrifice, has obtained forgiveness of sins, then it need not, may not, be repeated; but he has, by that offering, etc., verse 14 — what is obtained need not be obtained again, for to what end would the sacrifice be repeated? It could have no other end than the taking away of sins. But Christ, by his one sacrifice, took away sin and obtained forgiveness, as the prophet declares. Therefore Christ's sacrifice need not, may not, be repeated.
One need not trouble oneself to inquire of which sacrifice the Apostle speaks in verse 18 — the ceremonial, or Christ's — for he speaks of neither of the two specifically, but states a general proposition, which even natural reason can grasp: namely, that where forgiveness already is, no sacrifice is needed or has any place, since a sacrifice would exist only for that purpose. By this general proposition the Apostle proves that Christ's one sacrifice is sufficient, that it need not be repeated, and that no other sacrifice comes any longer into consideration, since forgiveness of sins has already been obtained by it.
But one might think: in verse 18 the word aphesis, forgiveness, is used, and that word is applied to the days of the New Testament, and, in opposition, that in the Old Testament only paresis had any place. And so the Apostle says: where aphesis is, there is no sacrifice — and not where there is only paresis.
I answer, in the first place: such a distinction between paresis and aphesis is but an invention, without ground or plausibility, as shown above; whether aphesis or paresis stands here makes no difference — forgiveness is forgiveness.
2. The word aphesis is not here set forth as belonging exclusively to the New Testament, in opposition to the Old. Rather, verse 18 is a general proposition. And in verses 16 and 17 the prophet speaks of sins being remembered no more. And this the LORD did also in the Old Testament, and would do also in the New.
But one might say: verse 18 states, "where forgiveness is, there is no more sacrifice" — but in the Old Testament there were sacrifices; therefore there was no complete forgiveness there. I answer: 1. They had forgiveness prior to that one sacrifice. If one might conclude in this way, then the following syllogism would be even more forceful: where there is sacrifice, there is no forgiveness at all. But in the Old Testament there were sacrifices: therefore there was no forgiveness at all. And again: where complete forgiveness is, there is no sacrifice. But in the New Testament there are sacrifices, Romans 12:1, "a sacrifice acceptable unto God"; Hebrews 13:15, "let us offer the sacrifice of praise." Therefore there is no complete forgiveness in the New Testament either.
Hence one sees that one must not remain stuck on the mere sound of the word, but must attend to the Apostle's meaning. This is: to show that, since forgiveness is through Christ's sacrifice, neither the repetition of Christ's sacrifice, nor any other sacrifice for satisfaction, is needed or can have any place. For this lies in the very nature of the matter: what has been obtained need not be obtained again. The Apostle does not mean, in verse 18, to say that where forgiveness is, there the sacrifices of the Old Testament are no more — but it is a general proposition, as has now been shown from the thread of his argument, from which known truth he concludes the needlessness of repeating Christ's sacrifice, since forgiveness has already been obtained by it, according to the testimony of Jeremiah.
But one might further think: if they had had complete forgiveness in the Old Testament, then the imputed sacrifice of Christ would not have been needed — for where there is forgiveness, there is no more sacrifice. Now the latter is untrue; therefore so is the former. I answer: 1. If they had obtained complete forgiveness through some other sacrifice, then Christ's sacrifice would not have been necessary — that is true. But this was not the case; this conclusion therefore proves nothing. They had it through the power of Christ, which was efficacious for the actual offering-up that was yet to come, and which was represented by faith. It is true that, in natural causes, the effect does not exist before the cause does — but this does not hold in moral causes, contracts, promises, and the like. When a surety has taken the debt upon himself as his own, and this has been signed upon the bond with the creditor's consent, then the debtor is free and beyond dispute, even though the surety has not yet made the payment; nor does it follow, from the debtor's already being absolved, that the surety need not pay. And if Christ's sacrifice, still to be offered, was powerful enough for some degree of forgiveness, why not then for complete forgiveness? Thus, then, we have seen that this passage has nothing to offer for such a pitiable notion of the state of believers in the Old Testament.
IV. Romans 5:13, "For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law."
The apparent difficulty would be this: that sin was in the world before the ceremonial law, and so there was then no complete forgiveness — rather, that it was not then imputed, since the law, which was laid upon them as a punishment demanding and reproaching the debt, had not yet been given; but that God let it pass by in silence, neither reproaching nor demanding it for sin, yet also not forgiving it. From which it would follow that once the law had come, sin was present and also imputed — that is, reproached through the ceremonial law. And thus they had no complete forgiveness of sins.
In answer: 1. "Until the law" — that this refers to the law given by Moses is mistaken. Through Moses, both the moral and the ceremonial law were given. Now Paul does not here speak of the ceremonial law — search freely, the mind will find no ground for that — but he speaks of the moral law, for he speaks of that law from which comes the knowledge of sin, by the works of which no flesh is justified, and which even in the days of the New Testament is not annulled through faith. It was with this law that the Apostle had been dealing, convincing men of sin by it, and setting Christ over against it, that they might be justified through him — a contrast he repeats often, both in the preceding chapters and in this fifth chapter. Since this law is the moral law, no conclusion can be drawn from it that sin was first demanded through the ceremonial law. And indeed, the ceremonial law already existed before the time of Moses; see above.
2. The Apostle speaks of sin as it lay upon all men according to nature, insofar as they descended from Adam, and of what power sin had, as may be seen in verses 12 and 14. From this, then, no inference can be drawn regarding the continuance or non-continuance of the sins of believers.
3. The Apostle shows that, even before the giving of the law through Moses, there was already a law — for there was sin, and that there was sin he shows from the punishment of sin before the lawgiving through Moses, verse 14, "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses." Where there is no law, sin is not imputed, that is, not punished; but where sin is imputed, that is, punished, there is already a law. Now before Moses there was sin, and sin was imputed, that is, punished; so there was, then, already a law before Moses. So that the Apostle does not mean to say that sin was not imputed before the time of Moses — rather, he shows that it was even then already imputed, since death already reigned then, and that therefore a law already existed then as well.
4. Not to impute is not to punish; to impute is to punish, as appears from verse 14: sin is not imputed when there is no law — nevertheless death reigned. If one now wished to maintain that before Moses sin was not imputed, but after Moses it was — for that is entirely what this text would then require — one could conclude nothing else than that sins were, before the time of Moses, committed with impunity, and that the sinner had no punishment to fear, and that after the time of Moses the godly were punished for their sins. Both are equally absurd. Thus we see that this text does not support such notions against the godly of the Old Testament.
V. Hebrews 9:15, "And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance."
The apparent difficulty is this: here the Apostle shows that the sins committed under the first testament were reconciled only through the death of Christ. And if they were reconciled only then, then they had not been reconciled before, but remained as an outstanding debt on the account of the godly.
In answer: 1. One must distinguish between the act that procures reconciliation, and the power of that act to bring about the reconciliation of believers. The act that procures reconciliation took place only at the time of Christ's suffering. But the power of that act unto reconciliation extends throughout the whole New Testament, to sins not yet committed, and reaches backward to the forgiveness of all the sins of believers already committed — a power that is applied not only at the time when the act took place, but as often as Christ is received by faith, at whatever time that may be. By this power the sins of believers were surely borne with, overlooked, and not punished; by this act believers were sanctified, and were received into glory — and if Christ's satisfying act had such power backward, then, by the very same reasoning, it could just as well have had power backward unto complete forgiveness, as indeed truly happened, as has now been abundantly shown.
2. This passage itself shows this: for if Christ's death is for the reconciliation of the transgressions committed under the first testament, then they already had, at that time, complete forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. For they did not first obtain and receive that reconciliation when Christ died — for many had already, thousands of years earlier, entered heaven and had there complete communion with God in perfect love and joy; their sins were therefore already gone, and complete reconciliation with God was already there — for in heaven one receives no forgiveness of sins. Even the blind Papists see this, and that is why they have constructed a limbo. Now, since the death of Christ, though it happened later, did not first bring about the reconciliation of the believers in the Old Testament, and yet that death did bring about their reconciliation, it must necessarily have taken effect for that time while they still lived, and before they entered heaven.
But one might think: Christ is here called the Mediator of the New Testament; therefore they could not have had complete forgiveness in the Old Testament, for where there is no Mediator, there is also no reconciliation.
Answer: 1. If that were so, there would have been no forgiveness at all, and all believers would have been in the same state as the wicked, for without a Mediator there is neither distinction nor salvation.
2. Christ was surely already the Mediator of the Old Testament as well, for he is the same yesterday and today. The Old and New Testament are, in essence, the very same Covenant of Grace, and are called Old and New only with respect to their administration; see above. Christ is a Mediator of the Covenant of Grace, and thus also of the Old Testament — but he is called principally the Mediator of the New Testament because the New Administration began with him, he being the antitype of all those shadows.
VI. Hebrews 11:39, 40, "And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."
The difficulty is this: because the fathers of the Old Testament are said not to have received the promise, and not to have been made perfect apart from those of the New Testament, it seems as though they had no complete forgiveness of sins.
In answer: 1. From the not-receiving of the promise no imperfect forgiveness of sins follows — unless by "the promise" were meant the promise of the forgiveness of sins; and then it would follow that there was no forgiveness at all. But by "the promise" is not at all meant the promise of forgiveness of sins — this is denied, and can find no shadow of reason to support such a notion; search the whole chapter freely. Rather, it is plainly evident that by "the promise" here is meant Christ in the flesh, the promised seed. See verse 13.
2. It is certain that imperfection cannot here be taken either with respect to justification or with respect to sanctification, since their glorification, before Christ's time, includes both of these within itself. They were not imperfect in heaven; complete glory, communion with God, and love exclude both guilt and stain. In heaven one receives no forgiveness of sins. So then they were already before us, and in that sense already without us, since we were not yet there; and before Christ's time they had already become souls of perfectly righteous men, Hebrews 12:23. And add to this all the proofs by which we have established above that believers in the Old Testament had complete forgiveness.
3. From the words "not without us," no imperfect forgiveness can be concluded either — unless those words were meant to signify: not sooner than we obtained it, but simultaneously with us when we receive it. But there is no plausibility to this. From it would then follow that they had, before that, received no forgiveness at all. And who then should be understood by "us"? The Apostle Paul, and the believers who lived with him at that time? Or the godly who had already died before him? Or all the godly of the New Testament up to the Day of Judgment, so that they would not be made perfect before the Day of Judgment? All these absurdities teach clearly enough that these words may not be taken in that way, and thus they give no proof of an imperfect forgiveness.
The meaning of this passage becomes clear as soon as one simply keeps to the text and the Apostle's line of argument. The Apostle here speaks of the obtaining and not-obtaining of the promises. In this respect he says that we — that is, in the New Testament — have something better than they had then in the Old Testament, that better thing being perfection. Keep now to this reasoning. What, then, is this promise that was not obtained then, and is now obtained? A promise is not the promising, the promising act, but the thing that was promised — for everyone will grant that in the Old Testament their justification, sanctification, and glorification were promised, just as well as ours. The promise, then, being the promised thing — what is it? It is that thing on which the faith by which they obtained a good report was fixed. Now this faith was fixed upon Christ, as appears from the nature of faith, and from the examples cited in this chapter.
Abel had his eyes on Christ when he offered, for thereby he obtained testimony that he was righteous, which could come about only through a faith fixed on Christ, verse 4. Noah's faith looked to Christ, whereby he became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith, verse 7. Abraham's faith looked to Christ, whereby he believed the promise of the multiplication of his seed, in which Christ was enclosed unto justification, verse 12, compared with Romans 4:22 and Galatians 3:16. Moses looked to Christ, whereby he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, verse 26. This Christ was promised to them, and they longed greatly to have him afterward in the flesh, verse 13. But in their time they did not obtain the fulfillment of that promise, but sustained themselves by looking to him through the shadows, and believing in him. These promises we have obtained in the New Testament, so that we, in the New Testament, among other privileges, also have in this respect obtained something better than they had. Their lesser perfection consisted in not yet having Christ as one who had come. It has now often been shown that Christ's still being to come, or his now having come, makes no difference to complete forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, comfort, and everlasting salvation, since Christ as the Surety had already taken all their sins from them and upon himself, and his death, still future, was already yesterday effectual — even as, among men, a suretyship can already bring about the complete release of the debtor before payment is made — so that the lesser degree and imperfection, with respect to Christ's being still to come or having already come, does not concern justification, but concerns the fulfillment of the promise, the administration of the Covenant, which is much better in the New Testament.
The Church is to be regarded as having been, before Abraham, in her childhood; from Abraham until Christ, in her adolescence; and after Christ, in a full-grown, mature state, progressing ever further toward perfection. So that the words "they" and "we" do not refer to the individual soul of each believer in the Old and New Testament, but must be taken generally, of the Church of the Old and of the New Testament. They mean to say that the Church, under the Old administration, did not yet have that perfection allotted to her by God, and that she was not to obtain it under the Old administration, but only in the New Testament. Also, the whole body is made perfect by the addition of all its members, so that it is not perfect so long as any are still lacking — though the text does not seem to have this last point in view.
VII. Romans 8:15, "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."
The knot is this: here the spirit of bondage is set against the Spirit of adoption, and the fruit of the one against that of the other, which are fear, and the crying, Abba, Father. Now the spirit of bondage unto fear is excluded from the New Testament, and assigned to the Church of the Old Testament; and the Spirit of adoption and the crying, Abba, Father, is assigned to the Church of the New Testament alone, and denied to the Church of the Old Testament — so that the one belongs only to the Old, and the other only to the New Testament. This is strengthened still further by the fact that the Church of the Old Testament is repeatedly said in Scripture to have been in bondage, so that the spirit of bondage is then also said of them.
In answer: 1. We grant that the spirit of bondage is the Holy Spirit; that the spirit of bondage was present in the time of the Old Testament, and that in the time of the New Testament there is the Spirit of adoption unto children. But it does not follow from this that this text speaks of the Old and New Testament in that sense. It does not state that there was then nothing else but the spirit of bondage, and that there was then no Spirit of adoption unto children at all. Nor does it say that in the New Testament there is nothing else but the Spirit of adoption, and that the spirit of bondage has no place here at all. No, not at all. They often go together in believers, especially in the newly converted.
In the beginning of conversion, the Holy Spirit convicts the conscience of sin: man is terrified of damnation, and comes with fear and trembling to God for grace through the Mediator; slavish fear restrains him from evil, and drives him to the pursuit of this or that good thing. And yet there is also, at the same time, the Spirit of adoption, causing him to embrace Jesus with a weak faith, and to labor to call upon God, Abba, Father — this is known to anyone who has himself been born again, and has ever spoken with other regenerate persons about the course of their conversion. So there is a spirit of bondage unto fear and a Spirit of adoption in one and the same believer; and since believers have existed in both Testaments, both Spirits — or rather, the one Spirit producing these two kinds of movements and workings — have likewise existed in both.
One might say: bondage unto fear, and the crying, Abba, Father, surely stand directly opposed to one another, and where the one is, the other surely cannot be. I answer: where the one is in the highest degree, there the other cannot be — this one could grant; but they can well both be present in one subject, each in a lesser degree, now the one, now the other being the stronger. As can be seen in many workings and in many subjects.
2. Granting that the Apostle said that in the Old Testament there was the spirit of bondage unto fear, it does not follow from this that all who lived under the Old Testament had nothing else but the spirit of bondage unto fear — only that these to whom Paul spoke, and those like them, had the spirit of bondage unto fear before their regeneration. For Paul here addresses the converted, and presses them on to sanctification by setting before them the grace they now had, more than before. That the unregenerate had nothing but the common gifts of the Holy Spirit, which convicted them of sin, which drove them to perform the ceremonial worship, which made them fear the punishment that must come upon those who neglected it — that is readily granted. From this it does indeed follow that the unconverted had nothing but the spirit of bondage; but it does not follow from this that the godly had nothing but the Spirit of adoption. The question is not about the unregenerate, but about the converted. This passage, then, does not touch the matter.
3. And even granting that the spirit of bondage was also said of the godly of the Old Testament, and this in contrast to the New Testament, it still comes down to the sense in which this was said of them. One would first have to be clearly persuaded that the Apostle said it in the sense that this objection intends — and that is denied. And I am confident that a mind seeking the truth will have to acknowledge that no firm grounds for that offer themselves in this text.
4. When one considers that adoption unto children certainly existed in the Old Testament, as has been proven above, one sees, even granting this passage its full weight, that only a difference in degree is to be noted here. The believers' knowledge, faith, and love were generally less in the Old Testament; the administration was more severe, and they lived under the bondage of the ceremonies, which required close watchfulness lest they make themselves ceremonially unclean, and thereby unfit to perform many acts of worship. From this there necessarily arose in the believers of the Old Testament more fear than in the New — yet this fear drove them to flee to the Messiah, that they might be justified and sanctified by him. This we readily grant; but it does not follow from this that they had no Spirit of adoption at all. And if, on account of this degree, the Spirit of adoption is assigned to the New Testament, that does not thereby deny the thing itself in the Old Testament. From the denial of the degree to the denial of the thing itself, the inference is not valid — otherwise one would also have to say that the believers in Paul's own time did not yet have adoption unto children either, for Paul speaks of it there in a future tense, in contrast to the present time, verse 23, "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."
Taking this text in this way, the Apostle's argument is powerful, namely: since we in the New Testament receive so much more grace than they had in the Old, we are, on that ground, the more strongly obligated to sanctification, and ought accordingly also to bring forth greater fruit of sanctification.
5. The Apostle here speaks not of different persons, but of the same, and says of them that they had not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but the Spirit of adoption unto children. This manner of speaking does not assert something, but denies something, as in 1 Corinthians 2:12, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but," etc. It does not mean what they had received before, but is a description of the Spirit they have now received, which is said not to work in such a way, but in such a way — expressing the matter more clearly by that contrast. And even if it meant to say what they had received before, one could draw no conclusion from it about such a state for the Jews, but only about the character of their unconverted state, for these were for the most part not Jews but Gentiles. And here the question concerns the state of the Jews, and especially the state of believing Jews.
The Apostle sets before them nothing other than their own former state, and compares it with their present state. Before they were converted, they were servants of sin, and lived in fear on account of their accusing conscience, as Paul says of them, chapter 6:20. When they were in the anguish of their new birth, there was still much slavish fear; but now that they had grown further in grace, and their faith was proclaimed throughout the whole world, Romans 1:8, they were no longer in such a state, but the Spirit of adoption made them live in confidence and comfort — and from this he presses them on to greater holiness. And so we see that this passage does not serve such objections.
VIII. Galatians 4:5, 6, "To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."
The apparent difficulty lies in this: that the state of the Church of the Old Testament is said, in verse 3, to have been in bondage; and in verse 1, to differ in nothing from a servant. But in verses 5 and 6 it is shown that the children of God, in the New Testament, come into a far more glorious state, consisting in the receiving of adoption unto children, which causes them to cry, Abba, Father.
In answer: 1. On such a footing one would have to conclude that they were not children of God at all in the Old Testament. For he does not here speak of the Spirit of adoption unto children, which admits of a different interpretation, but of adoption unto children itself, and says that this was obtained after Christ's coming. If one places adoption unto children only in the New Testament, in contrast to the Old, then there would have been none who partook of adoption unto children at all — whereas the Apostle nevertheless says, in verse 1, that they were heirs, and in verse 3, that they were children, and this has been abundantly shown above. Thus there can be no contrast in verses 5 and 6 between the New and Old Testament with respect to sonship. Rather, here it is spoken only of what benefit the Gentiles had — who, before Christ's coming, did not know God, and served those which by nature were no gods, as it stands in verse 8. What benefit, I say, did they have from Christ's coming? Namely, that they now obtained adoption unto children, just as the Jews had had it before them, Romans 9, of which they had before been excluded.
2. Even granting that there was a contrast between the believers of the Old and the New Testament with respect to sonship, this contrast was between children as minors and children as of age. Now a minor child is just as much a child, has just as much the father's love and favor, obtains just as much forgiveness for faults, and cries Father just as much as grown and mature children do; and consequently this contrast does not deny to the believers of the Old Testament either adoption unto children, or the Spirit of adoption, or the childlike disposition of heart, the drawing near to God, or the crying, Abba, Father. We readily grant that the believers of the Old Testament had all these things in a lesser measure — but a greater or lesser degree does not change the kind.
IX. Romans 4:15, "Because the law works wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression."
The apparent difficulty is this: that this law is the ceremonial law; of this the Apostle says that it works wrath — so that those who were under the law were under wrath. Against this the Apostle sets the state of the New Testament, saying: where there is no law, there is no transgression — that is, once the ceremonial law is taken away, that is a sign that sin is atoned for and that wrath is taken away.
In answer: 1. These notions go altogether far astray. All of this is flatly denied. Indeed, a mind that loves truth and is free of prejudice must, on its own conviction, acknowledge that there is no ground whatsoever for such notions.
2. The ceremonial laws were not given out of wrath, nor did they hold or bring men under wrath — they were pure blessings, as shown above, and sealed to them reconciliation with God. Nor, indeed, is it properly the ceremonial laws that are spoken of here, although the transgression of them likewise deserved wrath — rather, they themselves were neither out of wrath, nor wrath itself, nor unto wrath. But here it is principally the moral law that is spoken of, as appears from Romans 3:31, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yes, we establish the law." See also in this fourth chapter, verses 2, 4, 5, "For if Abraham were justified by works... Now to him that works, is the reward reckoned... but to him that works not." This law works wrath: when it is transgressed, it convicts the sinner of being deserving of wrath, and sets before him the righteousness of God in punishing the sinner, and thus proclaims wrath.
3. The wrath of God is either a fatherly wrath, chastening believers as his children for their good, or the wrath of a righteous Judge, under which only the wicked fall. Under the first, the believers of the New Testament come, just as well as those of the Old Testament did — and this is no evil but a good, for which the godly give thanks, Isaiah 12. Under the second fall only the wicked, and the godly never come under it. Of a third kind, however one might attempt to conceive it, Scripture nowhere speaks. Which wrath, then, is to be understood here? The Judge's punitive wrath? That concerns only the wicked, and so does not touch the question. Or the fatherly wrath? In that, both Testaments are alike, and it is a blessing. So that this passage carries no force. It is indeed true that many in the Old Testament were under the wrath of God — but these were not the godly, of whom the question now is, but the wicked; the godly were excepted, Hebrews 3:17, 18, "But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned?" etc.
4. The words, "where there is no law, there is no transgression," do not concern the time of the New Testament, as though meant to signal the law's abolition; rather, they prove only this — that the law works nothing upon the sinner but wrath. See more of this at Romans 5:15.
X. Galatians 3:10. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. The force of the argument would be: those who are of the works of the law are under the curse. But all believers of the Old Testament were of the works of the law. Therefore they were under the curse.
The answer: 1. Believers in the Old Testament were not of the works of the law. That is precisely what is denied here. There is no proof offered for it, so it remains a loose notion. One might think that they were, after all, "of the law." I answer: only in the sense that they were of the circumcision, which means nothing more than their descent — that they were born within the church. Those alone were "of the works of the law" who sought their righteousness from works, whether of the moral or of the ceremonial law; these necessarily fell short, and instead of being justified, found themselves under the curse of the law as transgressors.
2. No other curse is meant here than the one that falls upon all the ungodly on account of transgression, as what follows in this same verse, compared with Deuteronomy 27, plainly shows, saying, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in..." etc. No other curse is meant here than the one from which the Lord Jesus has redeemed his own, from Adam onward to the consummation of the world. (v. 13: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.) So then, the believers of the Old Testament were never under that curse.
3. Here the law is spoken of that stands opposed to faith. (v. 11, 14: And that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. But the law is not of faith; but the man that does these things shall live by them.) Now the ceremonial law does not stand opposed to faith, but is a seal of the righteousness of faith and belongs to the gospel; the moral law, however, in its demand, stands wholly opposed to faith. Therefore this law (v. 10) is not the law of the ceremonies but the moral law; and so the application is not peculiar to the Old Testament only, but is true at all times of all who are of the works of the law — that is, who seek their righteousness from it — that they are under the curse.
XI. Revelation 12:9–11. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world: he was cast out, I say, to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a great voice, saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. The apparent force is this: mention is made here of a battle in heaven, by which the church is understood, and the devil is said to have been overcome at the time when Christ ascended into heaven, or immediately thereafter. It follows that before that time he was in the church and had power there, because the debt of sin had not yet actually been paid, and he then accused the brethren on account of the outstanding debt and struck them with terror and fear; but now, in the New Testament, since the debt has been paid and he has been cast out, this ceases.
The answer: 1. To understand the sense of this passage, note that this twelfth chapter is not a history of the matter itself, but a vision, a scene, a representation, signifying what was to come. See that (v. 1 and 3): And there appeared a great wonder in heaven... and there appeared another wonder in heaven. This vision showed itself to John in heaven. God brought his prophets into rapture — sometimes in the Temple, sometimes at Jerusalem, sometimes by this or that river, or in some other place — and there he showed them what was to come. Now this vision was seen not in the Temple nor in any other place on earth, but in heaven — just as Peter saw heaven opened and a vessel let down to him, and afterward saw the vessel taken up again into heaven (Acts 10:11, 16). It would then be a strange conceit to understand "heaven" here as meaning the church. It was only the place where this vision showed itself to John. Nor can the situation John saw here in heaven fit the church, for the conflict was not within the church, but of the church against the devil, as two opposing parties.
2. Note that what is recounted in this twelfth chapter is not an account of things that had happened before the time of this Revelation, but of things that had yet to happen thereafter. See Revelation 1:1: to show unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass. (v. 19: the things to come are likewise revealed to him, though along with them the present state of the seven churches was also made known to him, as the occasions of coming judgments.) Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are (of the past there is no mention at all), and the things which shall be hereafter. So that this vision may not be applied to the birth and ascension of Christ, misled by the sound of the words where mention is made of giving birth, of ruling the nations with a rod of iron, and of being caught up to God — for those things belong to the church.
3. It is beyond dispute that Christ is the head of the church (Eph. 1:22), and that all believers are of him, so that he says (Heb. 2:13), Behold I and the children whom God has given me. The church cannot say of Christ, "behold I and the son whom God has given me." Christ is indeed the Son of man given to the church (Isaiah 9), but he is not the son of the church; accordingly, Christ is not this male child of the church. The church is the mother of believers as believers — she brings forth the image of God in the soul, but does not bring forth bodies or men as men. Christ was born neither of her nor through her, for he is the Light by nature; his bodily birth he did not have from the church, but from Adam, Abraham, David, Mary, and so he is a Son of man. But this male child spoken of (v. 5) was spiritually brought forth on behalf of the church. Since the church and her children are members of the Lord Jesus, living by the same Spirit, and are also conformed to the anointing of Christ — being spiritual prophets, priests, and also kings — so what properly belongs to the head alone is ascribed to the whole body of which Christ is the head, and of which each member participates and partakes in his measure. And thus the ruling of the nations with a rod of iron is here ascribed to the seed of the church, just as this too is ascribed to them in Revelation 2:26–27: He that overcomes, and keeps my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to pieces, even as I received of my Father. And since the devil lay in wait and set upon this male seed of the church in order to devour it, God took it away to himself — just as the godly are so often taken away before the day of evil comes, and every believer, when he has served the counsel of God, is taken up into heaven.
4. It is certain that the devil never ceases to assail believers at all times, and to persecute the church from beginning to end of the world by every kind of person and means; of this warfare Paul speaks in Ephesians 6:11–18. So that when a conflict is spoken of here, it does not follow that it is specifically a conflict between Christ and the devil over the ceremonies, or over some power he supposedly had over the church through the ceremonies and sought to retain. Rather, since this was a state of affairs still to come to pass when John saw it, it refers to particular fierce conflicts which the church of the New Testament would have with the devil — just as he has indeed often done great violence against the church of the New Testament, and has gained far greater advantage over the church of the New Testament, especially when he drove her into the wilderness, than he ever did in the Old Testament.
5. The conflict was with the dragon that had seven crowned heads and ten horns; see (v. 3), and that had deceived a third part of the stars (v. 4), and had wrought so great a deception (v. 9) — is that anything other than the cunning of the devil, and his violence in deceiving and persecuting the church of the New Testament through heathen and Roman power? By this cunning it is ascribed to him (v. 10) that he was an accuser of the brethren. But observe — before whom did he accuse them? Before themselves, to torment them, to strike them with terror by the law of the ceremonies as though it were a handwriting of unpaid debt? No, not before themselves; rather it stands there expressly that he did this before God. So all appearance that some power of the devil in the Old Testament is spoken of here falls away.
6. Note the time at which this conflict took place: it was either after the 1260 days spoken of (v. 6), or, if that is reckoned as a preceding narrative, then just before "a time, times, and half a time" (v. 12), and after he had wrought so great a deception (v. 9). Now we know that in the time of Christ, of the apostles, and of Jerusalem, and for many years thereafter, the church was not in the wilderness, but showed herself very gloriously in the world and broke forth on every side over the earth, though under many afflictions; but the church came into the wilderness through the rise and reign of Antichrist. So that this time does not fit the Old Testament — as though the devil then had some power in the church and was excluded from it only in the New Testament. Rather, it is a time that fell deep within the days of the New Testament. And if one wished to say the devil had power over the church and was cast out of it, one would have to say he first had power over the church of the New Testament, and only afterward was cast out of it.
7. Who overcame the dragon and his angels? This is applied not only to Christ but also to believers through the power of Christ, and that by the word of their testimony — that is, steadfast witness to the truth, and its sealing by their blood, which was poured out like water before the heathen emperors and other enemies.
8. This casting out of the devil does not establish that he had previously been within the church and held power and quiet possession there; it says only that he, warring against the church and seeking to lay her waste, fell short in the conflict, was overcome, and was thus cast out.
By all this it is plainly evident that nothing at all is said here of a conflict of the Old Testament, or of the devil's presence within the church of the Old Testament, or of his power through the ceremonies, or of his being cast out of it after Christ's death; but rather that this speaks of the conflict which the church of the New Testament, long after her separation from the Jewish church, would have with the devil, and what its outcome would be.
XII. Galatians 4:1–3. Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. The apparent force is this: the church of the Old Testament is here said not to differ from a servant, to be under tutors and governors, and to be in bondage — who else could these be but angels, magistrates, teachers?
The answer: 1. It is not so. The church of the Old Testament is not here said to have been under tutors and governors. Nor is it said to have been under angels, magistrates, and teachers in that sense. It is said only to have been in bondage, and that not under angels or magistrates, but under the elements of the world. As a minor child does not have possession of his goods, so they did not yet have the thing itself — that is, Christ now crucified. As a minor child is under guardians so as to be governed and guided by them, which is a special blessing for orphans, so they were under the ceremonies, to be taught and led by them to Christ, that they might believe in him. These ceremonies were called "elements" or "rudiments," because they consisted of outward, earthly, visible, tangible things.
2. Angels are now ministering spirits for the benefit of the elect (Heb. 1:14). Magistrates are now nursing fathers (Isaiah 49:23), and every soul must now be subject to the powers (Rom. 13:1). Members of the church must now also be obedient and submissive to their leaders (Heb. 13:17). So it now stands in the New Testament, and they had no other authority in the Old Testament either.
3. In these words is a comparison, which is set forth in verses 1 and 2, and applied in verse 3. Now everyone knows that a comparison need not be applied in every circumstance and particular, but only as to the very point of the comparison — and that is very clear here. For guardians are appointed over children whose father is dead, but the Father of the church of the Old Testament was the living God. A minor child under guardians also differs greatly from a servant in other respects that lie outside the apostle's purpose: for he receives more careful oversight and gentler governance, is better clothed, better fed, more waited upon, and is not put to servile labor. So a minor child and a servant differ in many ways; but the apostle has one particular point in view, in which the child and the servant differ not at all — namely, with respect to the use of his goods, in which the child has no more than the servant, and with respect to being under direction, being alike subject to guidance as a servant is, though not in the same manner. So that here one must attend to the apostle's purpose, which is the point of the comparison. The application (v. 3) is that the church of the Old Testament did not yet have possession of the goods — namely, Christ now crucified — but was led and governed toward him by the ceremonies, as though by the hand.
XIII. Colossians 2:15. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. The apparent force is this: the principalities and powers are the angels and the rulers in the Jewish church; these were as a garment under and behind which Christ, the only King, was hidden. Christ, now having come, laid all these aside like a garment, and thereby deposed them from their offices, so that in the New Testament they no longer had that power.
The answer: 1. Even if one could say of the kings in the Old Testament that they were shadows of King Christ, this can by no means be said of the angels. So the angels are not spoken of here.
2. Nor does what is said here of these principalities and powers fit angels and magistrates at all: for they were not plundered, and stripped and dragged off like defeated enemies — which is what the Greek word conveys — nor were they paraded about publicly in mockery and disgrace, as one is accustomed to do with conquered enemies. Moreover, if the magistrates were considered as Christ's garment, then it was not the magistrates and powers who were stripped off, nor were their garments taken from them; rather it would have to be said that Christ himself was stripped, since they were laid aside as his garment. Nor were the angels and magistrates Christ's enemies, such that Christ could triumph over them as over his enemies, as Christ has done over these principalities and powers. So that this text speaks neither of angels, nor of magistrates, nor of teachers.
3. By "principalities and powers" here is meant the devil and his angels: he bears that name in Ephesians 6:12, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, etc. And the devil has been overcome by Christ, who bound him and plundered his goods, and has paraded him in triumph as a conquered enemy. So the apparent force of this passage vanishes of itself.
XIV. Hebrews 2:14, 15. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. The apparent force is this: by "bondage" is meant the Old Testament, and in that time of bondage believers are said to have lived in fear of death, and that all their life long — so that the godly then, on account of the unpaid debt, lived continually in anxious distress, and greatly feared death, both as a punishment and as the means by which they would lose Canaan.
The answer: 1. Suppose the bondage were indeed the time of the Old Testament; suppose believers then did live in fear of death, and that their whole life long — what then? Does it follow that they had such a fear of death as is here suggested? Does it follow that they had a greater fear, or a different fear of death, than the godly have now? That does not follow; it is expressly denied.
2. But it is not so. "Bondage" here does not mean bondage under the ceremonies; rather, the very words of the text show that it is the bondage over which the devil has power — this is the bondage of sin of which Paul speaks (Rom. 6:19, 20): Like as you have yielded your members servants to iniquity... for when you were the servants of sin. And by "fear" here is not meant that imagined fear of bodily death, but from the very words it is plain that it is the death of which the devil has the power — this is eternal damnation. Sin causes men to be terrified before that death, and before bodily death as well, as a road leading to it. "All their lifetime" does not mean "up until their death," but refers to that long previous time before they were delivered from it — just as one says, "that person has been sickly all his life," even though at the time one so speaks of him he has since been restored.
3. In the Old Testament the godly had, in whatever sense one might imagine, nothing to fear: for the sting of death, which is sin, was already gone; they already had complete forgiveness of sins. They had no need to fear death on account of transgressing the ceremonial law, for only very gross, brazen, and presumptuous sins — and only in this or that particular matter — were even threatened with death, and far fewer still were actually punished with death. Nor did they need to fear death for the loss of Canaan; for that they might indeed fear exile, but in death itself they receive the very substance, of which Canaan was at most only a picture and a pledge. Besides, they did not even fear that, since they possessed peace and joy and a sense of God's favor, and assurance of their eternal salvation. That some at certain times did not wish to die arose from a wholly spiritual motive — namely, to be useful to the church of God and to glorify God in the land of the living; while others at other times longed for death.
4. Those who are here said to have been subject to fear through bondage are also said to have been delivered from that fear, and that by Christ's death. Now, believers of the Old Testament could not have been delivered from such an imagined fear as this interpretation supposes them to have had: for they were not delivered from it during their life, since as long as they lived, on this view, the same cause for fear remained — rather they would have died still in that fear of death. Nor were they delivered from it after their death, for after death there is no death for the godly, and therefore nothing to fear death for. No one fears death in heaven. And yet, since this text says that they were delivered from the fear of death, this text cannot be speaking of such a fear as that; what remains, rather, is that Christ, by his death — which is just as powerful yesterday and today — has delivered believers from the bondage of sin, from the power of the devil and of death, and has freed them from slavish fear, that they might serve him with a free and untroubled mind.
Question VII
Whether the seventh-day Sabbath, set forth in the fourth commandment, requiring a holy rest — that is, a joyful delighting in glorifying God, both privately and publicly, for his works, with cessation from bodily business, the work of one's calling, and servile labor — whether this seventh-day Sabbath belongs to the law of the ceremonies, was given to Israel alone, and has been fulfilled and abolished in Christ; or whether it belongs to the unchangeable rule of a holy life, like the other commandments of the law, and binds all men of all ages over the whole earth.
I answer: the seventh-day Sabbath belongs to the unchangeable rule of a holy life, like the other commandments of the law, and binds all men of all ages over the whole earth. It does not, in its nature, belong to the ceremonial law; it was not given to Israel alone; it has not been fulfilled in Christ as a shadow; it has not been abolished by Christ. We show this as follows.
I. If the Sabbath was given to Adam before the fall, then it belongs to the unchangeable rule of holiness, like the other commandments of the moral law, and binds all men of all times, and does not belong to the ceremonial law, was not given to Israel alone, nor fulfilled and abolished in Christ as a shadow. But the Sabbath was given to Adam before the fall. Therefore, etc. The force and truth of the first proposition is evident from this: that Adam represented the whole human race; that at that time the covenant of works stood in force; that Christ was then neither needed, nor known, nor promised, so that neither gospel nor shadow could yet have a place. All these things are free from any quibbling.
The second proposition, that the Sabbath was given to Adam before the fall, is evident from Genesis 2:1–3: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. To see the force of this, note the following.
1. First, note the thread and historical connection of the first seven days to one another, without any intervening matter (be aware that there are no chapter divisions in the Hebrew text — read this first and second chapter as one). There it is recounted what God did on each day, and together with that, what ordinance and approval God gave to each day's work; and now, coming to the seventh day in the same order, it is recounted that there was then no more work to do, but that everything had been finished in the preceding six days: that God rested on that day from his work; and that God, just as over the other days, also gave an approval and ordinance over the seventh day. He blessed it and sanctified it — not blessing himself, but that day, and sanctifying it — not the natural day in itself, but ordaining it to a holy use, as is likewise indicated in the fourth commandment. Not only did God give an example of resting on the seventh day and set forth his example for imitation, when his rest is given as the reason for the blessing and sanctifying, but God gave an express ordinance: he blessed and sanctified that very day. What is it to sanctify a day in this case, other than to appoint that day to a holy use?
2. Second: note that this ordinance of the seventh day took place before the fall. This appears from the following.
A. The sixth and seventh days are joined to one another just as the other preceding six days were, without any intervening matter, and thus without any mention of the fall; it is therefore presumptuous to wish to insert something between them.
B. The fall is described as having occurred after the seventh day, for it is described in chapter 3, after the first seven days and what had occurred on them had been described in full and without interruption.
C. The Holy Spirit testifies that everything was still very good when the sixth day had ended (Gen. 1:31): And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good; and the evening and the morning were the sixth day. So there was as yet no fall.
D. On the seventh day the LORD rested — that is, he looked upon all his works with pleasure, delighted in them, and was refreshed (Exod. 31:17: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed). When God saw the sin of man, it says, And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart (Gen. 6:6). Now, if man had fallen on the sixth day, then God, instead of being refreshed by him, would then already have had regret and grief of heart — but he had none of that then; instead he was refreshed by him, and instead of blessing, God would have cursed man and the earth. From all this we see, then, that man had not fallen on the sixth day, and that the Sabbath was given to him before the fall, and so existed before the fall.
E. Although this by itself would carry no force of proof or conviction, yet, joined to the other arguments, it does lend some clarity: it is not credible that man, having just opened his eyes upon the world, should immediately have fallen, with no time at all to delight himself in God and rejoice in his holy and glorious estate. Rather it is to be believed that God let him experience the goodness of his state for some time, so that he was already somewhat accustomed to God — for he already knew, at the wind of the day, the approach of God toward him (Gen. 3:8).
Someone might raise the following objections here.
1. Is this passage not a preceding narrative — that Moses, speaking of the ground of the Sabbath, on that occasion inserts back into the earlier account the institution of the Sabbath from his own time? For we do indeed find more such preceding narratives elsewhere in God's word.
I answer: A. One can make one's own conscience, or another's, waver by mere questioning — Eve herself was deceived by a question — but one ought rather to say, "it is so, and here is the proof." It is denied; where is the proof? B. It is true that, just as often in human historical writings, so too in the Holy Scriptures preceding narratives are indeed sometimes found; but that requires the subject matter itself to call for it, and that is then evident. Here, however, there is neither the one nor the other. Beware of "it might be so" — that does happen elsewhere, true, but these are poor guides that fill the soul with prejudice and unfit it to see the truth.
C. It cannot be a preceding narrative — this is plain from the text itself, for it states what God did on the first seventh day, and not what he did 2400 years later. And also, when God speaks of the Sabbath in the time of Moses, it is spoken of as a thing that had been instituted on that first seventh day; see only Exodus 20:11. It is also, indeed, against all likelihood that God, in giving a command 2400 years later, should take his reason from something that had happened so long before, of which there had been no knowledge at all in all that time. And also, if the Sabbath looked only to Christ, then this recounted rest of God on the seventh day could not be the reason and ground of the Sabbath. See — all these reasons show the emptiness of the claim that this should be a preceding narrative. More still: if this were a preceding narrative, then one could find no first institution of the Sabbath anywhere in God's Word at all; for it already existed before the giving of the law at Sinai, it already existed in the wilderness at the time of the giving of the manna, and there it was spoken of as a known thing. One might invoke this claim of a preceding narrative in order to make the Sabbath ceremonial, but that would overturn the claim itself, for such a narrative would have to occur on the occasion of the ground and reason of the Sabbath, which looked backward to God's rest, and not forward to the Messiah.
D. If this claim of a preceding narrative were to have any plausibility at all, it would first have to be established that this book of Genesis was written by Moses after the exodus from Egypt and after everything that had occurred at Horeb. But of this there is neither word nor sign, and so the claim of a preceding narrative is indeed without any ground.
2. The Sabbath did not fit Adam before the fall, for he had no work to do, nor was he ever wearied, and he glorified God every moment. I answer: a. Adam did indeed have work to do (Gen. 2:15): and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it. b. The Sabbath is for resting, that is, ceasing from work, even where there is no weariness. c. Although Adam could glorify God at all times, God nonetheless willed that he should do so on the seventh day in a particular manner, with the cessation of his labor and the setting apart of that day. d. The law was given to Adam not as one who alone would remain, but as the father of the whole human race, which, once greatly multiplied, would then have to keep this day by coming together before the face of the LORD, praising and glorifying him together.
3. We do not read that Adam or the subsequent fathers, up to Exodus 16, knew or kept the Sabbath, and therefore it is not likely that the Sabbath had already been given then. I answer: a. Little is recorded of the first two thousand years. It has pleased God to describe in particular what happened with Abraham and his descendants, so that one cannot conclude what they did or did not have or do, simply because it is not recorded. b. What matters is not what the succeeding generations of men did, but what they were obliged to do according to the commandment: circumcision, too, was neglected in the wilderness; we read nothing of the sanctifying of the Sabbath for hundreds of years after the giving of the law, and yet one may not conclude from this that it is likely they did not keep it, or did not have the command. c. Men before Moses knew how to speak of "sevens" — see Genesis 29:27, 28: Fulfill her week... and he fulfilled her week. Note well: in the original text stands Shebuang, which relates to the word Sheba that appears there. d. When God gave the law, he spoke of it as of a thing that already existed and was already known — "remember," not "the seventh day," but "the sabbath day"; therefore, "blessed," not "blesses"; "sanctified," not "sanctifies," did he say of it. So it happens also in Exodus 16:22, 23: And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man, and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which you will bake, etc. The rulers did not fail to notice where it came from that the bread had so multiplied; and Moses, instructing them, called the Sabbath to their remembrance — that it was the next day, that God willed that they should then rest, and that he had for that reason provided for them beforehand. e. Paul speaks of a rest, and of a rest of the seventh day, which had already existed from the foundation of the world (Heb. 4:3, 4): If they shall enter into my rest — although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he spoke somewhere of the seventh day in this way, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. By all this we see that, before the giving of the law, from Adam onward, men already had the institution and knowledge of the Sabbath.
4. If Genesis 2 does indeed speak of a setting apart of the seventh day, was this then not merely the setting apart of that one particular day — and that, in the first place, for God's own sake, not distinctly for man? No: it was a setting apart of the seventh day in its recurring order, and that for man, as plainly appears from Exodus 20, where the sanctifying of each successive seventh day is commanded because God had blessed and sanctified it — not merely because God had rested on that first seventh day, with reference to Genesis 2. From this it is at once evident that God gave that day to man.
5. It might seem that God did some further work on the seventh day: for verse 1 is the conclusion of the six days' creation, and verse 2 again recounts some work — And on the seventh day God finished the work which he had made. From this it might be inferred that on the seventh day God carried out the work of redemption, in restoring man once more.
I answer: 1. This is a mistake. It does not say here that God did any work on the seventh day, but that on the seventh day he had already finished the work that he had made — it was already done; to have finished a work is not to say one is working, but that one has done it, that one does no work. 2. This is expressly refuted by Exodus 20:11, for there it says that God rested on the seventh day, in contrast to all his six days' work: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. 3. If God had done the greater work on the seventh day — for redemption is greater than creation — then God's example of having rested on the seventh day after six days of labor could not have been set before man as a pattern for resting on the seventh day, as it in fact was. 4. If any notion were to be entertained that God had wrought the work of redemption on the seventh day, it would first have to be established that man had already sinned; but this is not only unproven, but the contrary has now been shown.
From all this it is then unshakeably established that the Sabbath was given to Adam before the fall, for the whole human race, and that it is accordingly not ceremonial, but of one nature with all the other moral commandments, which are an abiding rule of holiness for all mankind.
II. The second proof lies in the commandment of Exodus 20. From this I conclude as follows: that commandment which is a commandment of the moral law is not ceremonial, but belongs to the everlasting rule of holiness, binding all men. Now, the fourth commandment is a commandment of the moral law. Therefore, etc. The first proposition is beyond dispute: whatever the nature of the whole is, of the same nature is also each of its parts. If the whole law is moral, then each of its commandments is moral also.
The second proposition is shown from the following. 1. The moral law is the law which God himself spoke from Horeb, out of the midst of the fire, before the ears of all Israel; which God himself engraved on two tables of stone; which was laid up in the ark of the covenant, according to God's command; which is the law of love (Matt. 22); which is the royal law (James 2:10, 11); which contains within it the demand of the covenant of works, upon which eternal life would follow apart from the gospel (Rom. 10); which is the law of the ten commandments (Exod. 34:28; Deut. 4:10). To this everyone must give his assent.
Now the fourth commandment is one word of that law, as appears from the account of the law in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, and is treated just as the other commandments are. Therefore, etc.
Someone might say: this is indeed the moral law that is recounted there, but one commandment must be excepted from it — namely, the fourth. That one is of a different nature. To this we answer: 1. Where does it say that? 2. Then there would indeed be only nine commandments. One must take care not to take away from the law, nor add to it (Deut. 4:2), and that one not loosen even the least commandment (Matt. 5:19). 3. There is nothing in this commandment that resembles the ceremonial. One cannot show from the whole of Scripture that the seventh-day Sabbath looks to Christ, nor in what respect it should look to Christ. Some say it looked to Christ's rest in the grave. But Christ lay in the grave only parts of three days. And moreover, Christ's burial was a step of his humiliation — death held him. How could such a joyful, glad, refreshing, God-glorifying rest of the seventh day be a picture of the state of Christ's death, when everything then mourned? Scripture does not say so. The reasoning stands against it. 4. The entire content of the fourth commandment shows its moral character. The thing commanded is a holy, God-glorifying rest. The reason for the commandment is that God himself instituted it from the beginning. The example set before us for imitation is God's own act — and never, so far as we know, does he set himself forth as an example in a ceremonial commandment. Now take all these things together: the matter, the reason, the example, the law of which it is a part — this is forceful enough to persuade anyone who listens more to the commandment of God than to notions of his own devising, that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is not ceremonial but moral and ethical, and thus binding upon all men at all times.
III. Matthew 5:16, 17–19. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
The Lord Jesus' aim in this passage is to show that true godliness is not abolished by his coming. That the moral law is spoken of here is evident from this: it is that law which is a rule of good works and of a holy life (v. 16); it is that law which Christ did not come to dissolve — for he did indeed come to dissolve the law of the ceremonies; it is that law which Christ has fulfilled (v. 17), so that through his obedience we are constituted righteous (Rom. 5:19); it is that law which shall remain as long as heaven and earth stand (v. 18); it is that law which, after Christ's coming, one might not dissolve, but must do and teach (v. 19); it is that law in which killing, false and needless swearing, and revenge are forbidden, and in which beneficence and sincere love, even toward enemies, are commanded, as appears from what follows in this chapter. Now this is the moral law, which is the law of the ten commandments. So it is the moral law that is spoken of here. Now, of this law not one title nor one jot shall perish, so long as heaven and earth shall stand. And since the fourth commandment is a whole commandment of that law, nothing of the fourth commandment shall pass away — it shall remain and never perish; and accordingly it is not ceremonial, but an everlasting rule of life, like the other commandments.
But someone might think: here indeed the moral law is spoken of, that it shall not perish, but it does not follow from this that the Sabbath shall not perish, since it does not belong to the moral law. And that it stands among the ten commandments is no proof that it is moral. The answer to this is that this has already been shown in our second proof. Take the whole New Testament before you, and you will see that everywhere the law is set in contrast to the law of the ceremonies and to the gospel, the eye is fixed everywhere upon the law of the ten words. If one says, no, but upon the moral law — I ask, where then shall one find the moral law, if not in the ten words? If one says, yes, but with one exception — where does it say that? Nowhere. So it is but a loose notion. The law of the ten words is called the moral law; therefore all ten of them are moral.
IV. Matthew 24:20. But pray that your flight be not in the winter, nor on a sabbath day. That in this chapter mention is made of the time of Christ's coming and of the consummation of the world appears from v. 3. That mention is also made here of the destruction of Jerusalem, forty years after Christ's ascension, is beyond dispute.
The ceremonies had already lost their force immediately after Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension, and it was at once a sin to use them in the Jewish manner, as shadows pointing to a Messiah yet to come — although the outward observance, in a general religious sense, was tolerated for some time, so as not to trip up those weak in faith, and to allow time to strengthen them through instruction toward their complete abolition.
The Christian church was, before the destruction of Jerusalem, already long separated from the Jewish, and the ceremonies had already become deadly (Gal. 4:10, 11), so that one might no longer contend or pray for them.
Nevertheless we see here expressly that there would still be a Sabbath, just as there would still be winter. For what does not exist cannot be the subject of a command concerning it. We do not say that the sanctifying of the Sabbath is commanded here, but that from this command, alongside the mention of the Sabbath, it appears that there would still be a Sabbath then; therefore the Sabbath is not a ceremony.
It should also be carefully noted that this chapter does not speak only of the destruction of Jerusalem, but of the fearful persecutions that would befall the church in the New Testament, as have indeed often befallen her long afterward — and at that time the ceremonies were already long gone, and yet the Sabbath, like the winter, would still remain.
Was not this command — that the flight should not occur on the Sabbath — given to the Jews so as to bring upon them a further hindrance, since they were not permitted to flee on the Sabbath? I answer: they were indeed permitted to flee; that was not forbidden in the law. This is plain from various examples in God's Word.
Was this command not rather for weak Christians, who would still scruple at fleeing on that day? I answer: they might indeed flee; the ceremonies were already gone, and one could no longer pray concerning them.
Was this command not so that the Jews, seeing the Christians flee on the Sabbath, would not kill them? There is neither evidence nor reason for that. This was not a single, general flight, but a flight as often as they were driven out. The Jews concerned themselves with the Christians no more than the heathen did, and Jews, heathen, and Christians alike were permitted to flee on the Sabbath.
Why then should they pray against having to flee on the Sabbath? Because God had instituted it for refreshment and a special, joyful rest, and they would then have to forgo it, missing the occasion to praise God together with the congregation, to edify and be edified — so that fleeing on the Sabbath would be a double misery with respect to the soul, just as fleeing in winter is a double misery for the body.
V. To these proofs already set forth, that the Sabbath is not ceremonial but moral and everlasting, we now add the practice of Christ, of the apostles, and of the early church. The Lord Jesus honored the gathering of his disciples with his presence on the first day of the week, and eight days later the Lord did so again (John 20).
In the travels of Paul it stands (Acts 20:6, 7): And we came unto them to Troas in five days, where we abode seven days; and upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow. Note here that no other day is ever named in the New Testament, but that here again the first day of the week is named; that the congregation had come together on that day, spoken of as a customary thing; that Paul preached to the assembly on that day; that he was to depart the next day. From this it is clearly seen that they kept the Sabbath, and that on the first day of the week.
Add to this 1 Corinthians 16:1, 2: Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, etc. Again the first day of the week is named, as a well-known day of worship and assembly — not this or that individual acting on his own, but among the congregations.
The apostle John, on the island of Patmos, now already banished after the destruction of Jerusalem, makes known that a day was kept holy to the Lord, and that he kept it, calling it, as well known to all, "the Lord's day" (Rev. 1:10): And I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. Of the Sabbath it is said in the fourth commandment (Exod. 20:10), but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD. And note, the apostle uses that very same expression, saying, "on the Lord's day" — that is, the day which the Lord instituted, sanctified, and blessed.
Add to this the practice of the churches of Christ from the times of the apostles down to our own day: take as a sample these testimonies of church teachers who lived shortly after the times of the apostles.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 4, chapter 31: "God spoke the words of the ten commandments by himself, and therefore they remain with us, having received through Christ's coming in the flesh neither diminishment nor dissolution."
Basil calls the Lord's day the Sabbath, in his epistle to Caesarius the Patrician.
Epiphanius, Heresies, 51: "The first Sabbath is that which was decreed and enjoined by God from the beginning, at the creation of the world, and which — note well — from that time to this still continues in the cycle of the seven days."
Athanasius, On the Sabbath: "Formerly, among the ancients, the Sabbath was held in greater honor; which glorious day the Lord Jesus has changed into the Lord's day."
Eusebius: "Christ has enjoined upon all men who are in the world, by water and by land, that they should come together on one day in the week."
Augustine, Epistle 3 to Januarius: "The apostles instituted the Lord's day in place of the sabbath of the Jews." Sermon on the Season, 251: "One must know that it is commanded, not only by our holy forefathers, but by God himself, that we should rest on the Lord's day."
Justin Martyr, Oration to Antoninus Pius: "On the day which is called Sunday, there occurs an assembly of all."
Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis, Homily 10: "God has made this teaching known to us already from the beginning, teaching us that in the course of a week one whole day must be set apart, and devoted to a spiritual work."
Constantine the Great, according to the testimony of Eusebius in his Life of Constantine, book 4, chapter 18, gave this order: "Let the whole soul be kept occupied on that day in the service of God, and let there be rest from marketing, from lawsuits and pleadings, and from the labor of tradesmen."
The first Christians were also very conscientious in the sanctifying of the Sabbath; and just as the Sabbath was formerly a sign that God sanctified the Jewish church and took her up as his people, so the Sabbath was also such a sign among the first Christians. The heathen would lie in wait on that day to seize the Christians, and when they had caught someone, they would ask whether he had also kept the Lord's day — to which they would then answer boldly, that they were Christians, that they had kept the Lord's day out of a fitting religious zeal, because one was not permitted to neglect the keeping of that day. (Baronius, Annals, year 303, no. 37.)
There you have now a few of the reasons drawn from the early church, from which we see how they, by a divine ordinance, kept the seventh day. Now take these things together: consider that the seventh day was instituted before the fall; that it is commanded in the fourth commandment of the moral law; that of this law neither jot nor tittle shall pass away; that Christ declares that the Sabbath would still remain after his time; that Christ, the apostles, and the early church kept the Sabbath. How then can anyone answer to his own conscience for rejecting this day? Must not everyone stand convinced of the perpetuity of the Sabbath, stand ashamed of his own unfaithfulness, be grieved over its profanation, and be roused to a more conscientious keeping of it? Surely, yes.
Objection I. All commandments that are an enduring rule of morality flow from the nature of God, have virtue in themselves and something of the image of God, are known by nature, and bind all men; and they do not flow from a voluntary institution which God could either command or not command. But the Sabbath does not flow from the nature of God, has no virtue in itself nor anything of the image of God — since it is a commandment that concerns only time — is not known by nature, and does not bind all men, for since the heathen have no knowledge of this commandment, they do not sin by failing to keep the Sabbath, and it was given to Israel alone. Rather it flows from a voluntary institution of God, such that God might well have chosen not to command the Sabbath at all. Therefore the commandment of the Sabbath is not an abiding rule of life, and so does not concern us in the New Testament.
The answer to this: both the first and second propositions fail to hold, resting only on ungrounded notions of a darkened and corrupted understanding.
As to the first proposition: 1. It is denied. Consider, reader, whence this notion of yours might arise — what ground does that assertion have in God's Word, from what passage can it be established, or by what reasoning would you confirm it? You will indeed have to admit that it is simply how the matter appeals to you, that it pleases you, but that you have no ground to prove it if someone refuses to accept it. Well then, lay aside that prejudice, and build only on what you see to have a firm ground.
2. It is a slight to the sovereignty of God to suggest that he might not be permitted or able to give voluntary commandments — which do not flow necessarily from his nature — as an everlasting rule of morality for the whole human race. He is a sovereign Lawgiver; you, whoever you are, ought not to dispute his right.
3. God has given positive or voluntary laws as an everlasting rule of morality, which he need not, or could otherwise, have given. In the second commandment God has commanded that religious worship be carried out by eating and drinking in the sacraments. In the seventh commandment God has commanded that marriage be only between two, that one may not join outside of marriage, that marriage may not be contracted too closely within degrees of blood, that marriage may not be dissolved. In the fifth commandment God has commanded that man shall stand in subjection to others, subjects under magistrates. In the sixth commandment God has forbidden private persons to punish evildoers who deserve death, this being instead the office of the magistrate. And God could well have arranged it so that everyone had a right to everything, and the world snatched all things from one another, high and low, so that theft had no place and the eighth commandment was unnecessary. Are these commandments, then, not given just as positively and voluntarily as one might suppose of the Sabbath? And yet they are an enduring rule of life.
4. Not every commandment need have in itself something that is, of itself and immediately, the image of God — take the very commandments just named: for they are not found among the angels, nor in heaven, where the image of God shines forth most perfectly of all. But obedience to all the commandments of God, whatever they are, belongs to the image of God. For, a. God's will gives its worth to every commandment. Even if a man forsakes the forbidden and does the commanded, if he does not do it out of the will of God, he does no virtuous act. The obeying of the commandments carries in God's Word the name of doing the will of God: 1 Peter 4:2, "that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God"; Matthew 6:10, "Thy will be done"; Ephesians 6:6, "Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart." b. Moreover, this is the image of God in man: that he love God, that he unite his will with the will of God, and do what is pleasing to God. So that it does not matter what particular object is in view, but only what the will of God is.
5. Not every commandment of the everlasting moral law is known by corrupted nature. Paul says of the tenth commandment (Rom. 7:7), "For I had not known lust to be sin, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." The particular applications recounted from the seventh commandment are likewise not known from nature; indeed, the spiritual depth of each commandment cannot be grasped or conceived by corrupted nature at all, and yet each and every one of them is enduring and moral.
Besides, one must carefully distinguish between the holy nature and the corrupted nature: what holy, unfallen nature would have taught and known, we in our darkness do not know. Corrupted nature cannot judge in this matter; it is not the standard by which to test commandments. It is also sufficient that a commandment binds the human race if it was given to the human race by institution — an institution that would have been handed down even if man had not sinned. That man, through sin, has lost that transmission of the commandment to the human race is then his own fault.
From all this we see that the first proposition of the objection stated above does not hold. Let us now turn to the second proposition, namely, that the Sabbath does not flow from the nature of God, has no virtue or anything of the image of God in itself, is not known from nature, was given to Israel alone, but is only a positive commandment, which God can give and take away.
I answer in general: since the first proposition does not agree with the truth, it makes no difference whether the Sabbath is a necessary or a voluntary commandment; one need only see whether it is commanded to us or not.
In particular: 1. That the Sabbath does not flow from the nature of God is more quickly said than proved. Corrupted nature cannot be the judge in these matters. You say, it concerns after all only a determination of time. I answer: that is beside the point; it concerns a holy rest at such a time, just as God has gone before us and set his own act before us as a pattern for imitation. And why should the circumstance of time not be just as capable of being moral as the circumstance of persons or things? And even if the Sabbath did not flow from the nature of God — in that God's own act gave the creature a pattern — what then? It can nevertheless be an enduringly moral thing, as has now been shown.
2. That the Sabbath has no virtue in itself, nor anything of the image of God. I answer: to sanctify the Sabbath is itself an act of virtue, for it is the accomplishing of the will of God; obedience to this commandment belongs to the image of God, for it is a uniting with the will of God in love. Indeed, it is also an imitation of, and a likeness to, God: for God rested on the seventh day, and therefore gave us that day so that we might follow his example (Exod. 20). And we are obligated to be followers of God, as beloved children (Eph. 5:1).
3. That the Sabbath is not known from nature. I answer: a. This is no reason to remove a commandment from the moral law. b. We cannot say that holy, unfallen nature would not have taught man the Sabbath. Corrupted nature knows little of the moral law — only some outward and gross matters, sufficient to leave it without excuse. c. Even among the heathen there are many traces of the observance of set days; indeed, they too are acquainted with the number seven.
4. That the Sabbath was given to Israel alone. There is a great difference between its being given to Israel and its being given only for Israel. It is true that God renewed and restored this law to Israel as well; but it had already before that been given to man, and to all men, as is shown in the first proof.
But in this commandment something is mentioned that can only pertain to Israel (Deut. 5:15): And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt... therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.
The answer: 1. One must distinguish between the commandment and the circumstantial applications of it. The first is always the same; the second can change from time to time. For if from a circumstantial application that touches Israel alone one were to conclude that the whole commandment touched them alone, one would by that same reasoning have to conclude that the whole moral law does not touch us — since the fifth commandment, too, has attached to it a reason that pertains to Israel alone (namely, the very one adduced here from Deut. 5:15, the deliverance from Egypt, out of the house of bondage). By the same logic one could conclude that the fifth commandment does not concern us, since it carries a promise that pertains to Canaan, and thus to Israel alone — and yet the whole law, including the fifth commandment, is moral. So then, this reasoning and application does not weaken this commandment. And indeed, rightly considered, it is an application that has respect to servants, meant to move masters to let them likewise rest, since they themselves knew how hard they had had it in slavery in Egypt. Thus we see that all these objections have no force against the Sabbath.
Objection II. Ezekiel 20:12: Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them. The apparent force is this: 1. That God, having recounted the giving of the statutes and judgments — which, if a man does, he shall live by them — then adds, "moreover I also gave them my sabbaths." By this it is signified, first, that the Sabbath was of a different nature from the other judgments; second, that the Sabbath is called a sign, and is therefore a picture and a shadow of Christ. And accordingly the Sabbath would belong to the ceremonial law, and so is now no longer a rule of life.
The answer to the first objection: 1. The little word rendered "moreover" in its primary sense means "and also," so that it must here be understood in the sense of "and also." This makes no contrast, as though the one were of a different nature from the other, but often signifies an excelling of what follows over what precedes, as in Psalm 14:3, "There is none that does good, no, not one"; Genesis 50:17, 18, where Joseph wept when they spoke to him, and afterward his brethren also came; Zechariah 8:21, "Let us go speedily to pray before the LORD... I will go also." Anyone can easily see that the little word "also" makes no contrast of natures, but an intensifying. So that here too "moreover," or "and also," means as much as: "I have given you my statutes and judgments, and indeed especially my sabbaths."
2. The seventh-day Sabbath belongs just as much to the law which Stephen calls "the lively oracles" (Acts 7:38) as the other commandments do. And of the Sabbath it is indeed said expressly (Isa. 56:4, 6): Unto them that keep my sabbaths... even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. And Isaiah 58:13, 14: If thou call the sabbath a delight, to sanctify the LORD... then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father. From this it appears that there can be no contrast here between the statutes and judgments, by which life was to be obtained, and the seventh-day Sabbath, by which life was not to be obtained. So no contrast can be concluded either from the word or from the matter itself.
3. Nor is it evident that the weekly Sabbath is spoken of here at all, for both the weekly Sabbath and the ceremonial sabbaths alike bear the name "Sabbath." And even though the name is shared, their nature is unequal, so that there would need to be reasons showing us that the weekly Sabbath must also be included here. If one understands the ceremonial sabbaths here, the intensifying is forceful: "I have given you my statutes and judgments — and besides these, also the gospel and the whole service prefiguring the Messiah" (a part taken for the whole). If one understands the weekly Sabbath, the intensifying is likewise forceful: "I have given you my statutes and judgments, and indeed especially also my Sabbath" — and that, to be a sign that you are my people, whom I have taken up, whom I sanctify and set apart from all peoples; and notwithstanding all these mercies, you are yet so ungodly.
As for the second difficulty, that the Sabbath is called a sign, this will readily disappear when one considers: 1. That the entire moral law is also called a sign (Deut. 6:8): Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand. The plagues of God are also called a sign (Deut. 28:46): And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder. Isaiah, like other prophets, is also called a sign (Isa. 20:3): Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt. The Lord Jesus himself is also called a sign (Luke 2:34): This child is set for a sign which shall be spoken against. The extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit are also called signs (Mark 16:17): These signs shall follow them that believe. Nor does a sign always signify something to come; it can also signify something present — see also Psalm 86:17: Shew me a token for good. There — from all these passages it is plain enough that whatever bears the name of a sign is not therefore necessarily a ceremony or a shadow pointing to Christ, or a signifier of something yet to come. Just as here too it is expressly indicated that this sign spoken of here is a sign of a present thing: "a sign that I am the LORD that sanctifies them."
2. Now, one and the same thing can serve many purposes: when one purpose is stated, the other purpose is not thereby denied. A thing that already existed before, but was not yet a sign, can afterward — while retaining its original use — indeed become a sign of something. So the rainbow, which already existed before, was afterward established as a sign of the covenant made with Noah (Gen. 9:12). So too the Sabbath, which had already been given to Adam, could afterward, while retaining its own moral character, also become a time on which many ceremonial acts of worship had to be performed; and the Sabbath could at the same time also become a sign that God had taken up a people again as his own, and that one could recognize by it that that people was God's people — since, while the Sabbath was neglected by all other nations, it was kept holy among that people, just as the Sabbath was then such a sign among the Jews, and is now among Christians. The Sabbath is very conspicuous; it is the most distinctive and the most public of all religious observances.
Objection III. Matthew 12:8: For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day. The apparent force is this: Christ defends his disciples in the plucking of the ears of grain by granting them freedom to do so on the Sabbath, since he was Lord of the Sabbath, and thereby showed that he was now abolishing the Sabbath. Or, that man is made lord of the Sabbath, so as to deal with it according to his own pleasure. The answer to the first:
1. There is not a single word of abolition here; because someone is lord over a thing does not mean he throws it away — rather, he preserves it, uses it, and governs it.
2. There was here no transgression of the Sabbath at all, for it was quite permissible on the Sabbath, while walking through a field, to pluck ears of grain, rub them in the hands, and eat the kernels. To count that unlawful was merely a superstition of the Jews. This is evident from verses 3 and 5: Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
3. If the Sabbath had been a type of Christ's lying in the grave, it could not have been abolished here, for the antitype had not yet been fulfilled.
4. Christ himself kept the Sabbath (Luke 4:16): And, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
5. Christ taught his disciples that, after his death, they should pray that no hardship might come upon them on the Sabbath (Matt. 24:20).
6. So that what Christ means to say here is that he, as Lord of the Sabbath, knew its true meaning and could explain it.
The answer to the second interpretation: 1. It is Christ's customary manner of speech to call himself the Son of man, and having named himself thus according to one nature, he then ascribes to himself what properly belongs to him according to the other nature. He is the one to whom the Father has given authority also to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man (John 5:27).
2. Supposing that by "son of man" the whole human race were meant — then the Sabbath was given to the whole human race, and accordingly it is a moral commandment concerning all men.
3. Still further: suppose that by "the son of man" the heathen were meant, though this is without Scripture or reason — even granting that for argument's sake, what then? Because they were lords of the Sabbath, could they then deal with it however they pleased? Then they would not have sinned even in transgressing the Sabbath, even in earlier times. Were it laid here under their feet, or under the disciples' feet, then the type would have been taken away before the antitype, the fulfillment, was there.
4. Here, then, there is only a defense that the disciples had not sinned — that the plucking and eating of the ears of grain on the Sabbath was lawful. And even if it had not been lawful apart from necessity, it would still not have been a sin here, since necessity was present; and this amounts to no more than saying: when these two come into conflict — man and the Sabbath — and one of the two must give way, whether the man would otherwise have to die, be weak and in pain, or suffer hunger and thirst; or one must, for the saving of that man, do something that would otherwise not be lawful to do on the Sabbath — then the saving of the man must take precedence, and the Sabbath must then yield, because man is greater than the Sabbath, and because mercy must take precedence over sacrifice (v. 7). So that there is nothing in this passage against the Sabbath.
Objection IV. Romans 14:5, 6: One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.
Galatians 4:10, 11: Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
Colossians 2:16, 17: Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
The difficulty that arises from these passages is this: it seems here as though all distinction of days has been taken away, so that one may not judge another concerning it — indeed, that the observance of days is harmful to the gospel, and that accordingly there is now no Sabbath in the New Testament, nor may one be kept.
The answer: 1. These passages cannot be brought against the Sabbath, so long as one grants that there is still something moral in the fourth commandment — even if it were only the obligation to set apart some time (whatever time it may be, and however often one does so) for public worship; for that already establishes a distinction of times, even if it were only every twentieth day, even if it were only half a day or a few hours. These passages, then, according to that presupposition, do not speak of the distinguishing of times or days that is commanded in the fourth commandment, which is the very question at issue. And so these passages cannot be adduced against the Sabbath.
2. It is a well-known truth that the Lord's day was everywhere commanded by the apostles to be kept by the churches; it is known that no dispute ever arose over that day, that no one ever wished to force it in against the apostles' wishes, or to root it out. So it is clear that when the apostles, in the passages cited above, set themselves against those who wished to introduce the observance of other days, their eye was not upon the Lord's day, and that no one in the early church had any thought concerning that day, but that everyone very well understood that the apostle was not speaking of that day, but of other Jewish, ceremonial days. Now then, since the apostle in these passages is not speaking of the Lord's day, these passages cannot be brought forward to oppose the Lord's day, and so one would altogether miss the true question — for the question is whether one must keep the seventh day, which is called the Sabbath and the Lord's day.
But someone might say: these passages are brought forward not in order to oppose the Lord's day, but to show that it may not be kept by force of any divine commandment, and that we keep it only by human institution. I answer: if the apostle is not speaking at all of the Lord's day, then neither does he say whether it may be observed by force of God's command or of human institution. And so neither the one nor the other can be established or overturned from these passages. The apostle speaks of Jewish ceremonial days, so that one would first have to prove that the seventh day, the Sabbath, the Lord's day, was a ceremony and a shadow, and only then could one come with these passages to drive it out. But to say, "the apostle forbids the keeping of ceremonial days, therefore the Sabbath is ceremonial" — that inference is worthless.
2. If all distinction of days were forbidden here, then the apostles could not have instituted the Lord's day; then the church would have no power to institute or keep the Lord's day, or days of prayer, or days of thanksgiving — for the distinction of days of which Paul speaks in these passages would, on this reading, be harmful to the gospel, and it would be contrary to the apostles' own command to proceed so. Indeed, just as the distinction of foods — which is set in these passages on the same footing as days — if introduced as such, is a mark of Antichrist, and is a doctrine of devils to command abstinence from foods (1 Tim. 4:3), so too the instituting of a distinction of days, if the apostle condemns that in general, would run a good way in the same direction. So it is clearly evident that the apostle does not speak in general against the keeping of times and days, but that he speaks of the keeping of Jewish and ceremonial days. And therefore one cannot conclude: the distinction of days ceases, therefore also the Sabbath. And so long as it has not been proven that the keeping of the Sabbath, or the Lord's day, by force of God's command, is Jewish and ceremonial, one may not bring these passages to bear against it; but were that once shown, then they would first become relevant — but not before.
3. If one may not judge another in the keeping of the day; indeed, if it is those who keep no day at all who are the strongest [in faith], and if the keeping of it were harmful to the gospel, then no one is obligated — indeed, he does best who goes to work on the Lord's day, and leaves the running to church to whoever pleases. Now no one will grant that; so it is evident that these passages do not speak so generally, but of Jewish ceremonial days. But then they do not touch the Lord's day — whether it must be kept by force of God's command or by force of human institution is indeed an entirely different question. We gladly grant, and do not dispute, that the apostle speaks of Jewish ceremonial days, that these may not be reintroduced. But what proof is that against the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, first instituted in Genesis 2? The proof from these passages runs thus: the Jewish days must be abolished; therefore the Sabbath must be abolished. The Jewish days are ceremonial; therefore the Sabbath is ceremonial. Who does not see that such a conclusion does not follow? One would first have to establish that the Sabbath was Jewish and ceremonial, and then conclude, therefore it must be abolished. But this first point cannot be proven from these passages, as we have now shown.
Let us now examine each passage in particular.
As to Romans 14:5, 6: here the dispute concerns tolerating the keeping of all sorts of days, not the abandoning of all days whatsoever. The believers from among the Gentiles, of whom the church largely consisted, understood — rightly — that one was no longer bound to the Jewish festival days, and that the distinction of foods had now ceased. The weak-in-faith Jewish believers, who had joined themselves to the congregation, did rightly understand that the ceremonial had to be taken away, for they believed that Christ had already come; but they still supposed that the Jewish festival days had to be kept for religious observance, and that they might still not eat every kind of food. This the believers from among the Gentiles could not tolerate. Paul admonishes that the weak should be borne with for a time. See then — this passage does not in the least concern the Lord's day, the Sabbath. And here there is no proof either that the Sabbath is Jewish or that it had to be abolished.
As to Galatians 4:10, 11: whereas the weak-in-faith Jews of Romans 14 had to be tolerated, the apostle here does not wish that one should tolerate the Jews defending the whole ceremonial service — and likewise the Jewish festival days — with force, reintroducing them, and pressing others into them, as the Jews sought to do, as appears in Galatians 4:1 and following, and 4:9. For while one may bear with someone who is quietly weak in himself, one may not tolerate it when someone, through this, grows bold and seeks to force his error upon others. So here there is not a single word about the Sabbath — whether it is ceremonial or moral, whether it had to be abolished or to remain. That this passage cannot be taken generally, and that nothing against the Sabbath can be concluded from a general statement concerning all Jewish days, has already been shown in the general answers above.
But one might think: here all the holy days of the Jews must be understood, even the weekly Sabbath as well. Here mention is made of years — but under this belong the sabbatical year and the jubilee year; then of times, which are the three feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles; then of months, which are the new moons; and of days — what else could that be but the seventh day, the Sabbath?
I answer: 1. One would first have to be quite certain that the apostle, by those words, meant the aforementioned festival days. 2. If one were even to grant this of years, months, and times, it would still not follow that one had to understand the Sabbath of the fourth commandment among the "days," unless they had, besides the aforementioned times, years, months, and seventh day, no other days at all. But besides these they had, moreover, various feast days, as may be seen in Leviticus 23, and as will shortly be shown at Colossians 2 — and these other feast days were of the same nature as these times, years, and months. So that, because "days" are named here, it does not follow that the Sabbath must be reckoned among them; but since the seventh-day Sabbath is not of the same nature as the other days, but is moral, and is not a hindrance to the gospel but rather advantageous to it, it is evident that the apostle is not speaking of the Sabbath here. Add to this the general answers given above.
As to Colossians 2:16, 17: to understand this passage one must observe: 1. That among the Jews there were many sabbaths. The fifteenth day of the first month (Lev. 23:6, 7); the last day of the Passover (v. 8, v. 21), where yet another feast day is mentioned as well; the first day of the seventh month (Lev. 23:24, 25); the tenth day of the seventh month (Lev. 23:34, 35); the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles (v. 36). These were all ceremonial. But besides these there was still another one, which had already existed from the beginning, and was commanded in the fourth commandment of the moral law. This one was of a wholly different nature: moral.
2. Things of a different nature can bear the same name. Judas the betrayer, and Judas who wrote that powerful epistle, share the same name; yet one may not say of them both whatever is said of Judas the betrayer. So too one may not say of all sabbaths whatever is said of the weekly Sabbath, since there is a difference, and the ceremonial Sabbaths, on account of some resemblance to the moral Sabbath in certain respects, bear the name of Sabbath.
3. An indefinite manner of speech must not be extended to everything that bears that name; rather, one must stay within the subject matter then under discussion. This is well enough known among those who understand it, but in order to show it also to the inexperienced, observe it in this very text. The word meat and drink is used here just as indefinitely as the word Sabbaths. Now it is easy to understand that by meat and drink one must not understand all meat and drink, even though it bears that name, but only that meat and drink concerning which the dispute here arose — which was not about vegetables, but about the food forbidden in the ceremonial law, the use of which the Apostle here declared free. Yet elsewhere, in 1 John 5:3, the Apostle says, This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. From this one may not conclude that in the New Testament one must keep the ceremonial commandments, merely because they too bear the name of commandments; rather, one must understand the commandments that are now in force. And so there are many passages in which the indefinite term must be understood according to the subject matter then at hand, and must not be extended to everything that bears that name. If this is applied to the Sabbaths, the difficulty vanishes. There were many Sabbaths in the Old Testament. Things of a different nature may well bear the same name. From an indefinite expression one may not make application to everything bearing that name. This being now beyond dispute, it is likewise beyond dispute that one may not conclude that the seventh-day Sabbath is abolished merely because the Apostle uses the indefinite expression Sabbaths; rather, one must apply this to those Sabbaths which are of one nature with the meat and drink — that is, which were ceremonial, which were shadows, as appears (v. 17). And so one may not conclude that the seventh-day Sabbath is a shadow merely because meat, drink, feast days, and Sabbaths are shadows.
4. It is easy to see that the Apostle here does not intend to prove what is shadowy and what is not, but rather what, on account of its shadowy character, must be abolished. Among these he names Sabbaths, but he does not say all Sabbaths, or this or that Sabbath — the Sabbaths he means here being well known, and those he does not mean being equally well known, since the seventh-day Sabbath was kept by the Church, and there was no dispute over that one. One must therefore first prove that the weekly Sabbath belonged among the shadows, and then this passage will serve to show that it has been abolished.
Add to this that it says Sabbaths, and not Sabbath, whereas throughout God's holy Word the seventh-day Sabbath is consistently called Sabbath in the singular. It should also be noted that Paul here is not speaking against the heathen who stood outside the Church, as though Christians were being set over against Jews and he were rebuking their worship, but against those who were within the Church, and among whom the weekly Sabbath — which was also called the Lord's Day — was kept.
Thus it has been shown that whatever difficulty anyone might have over these passages is no difficulty at all, and that they provide not the least ground for the abolition of the Sabbath.
V. Hebrews 4:1–11. 1. Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. 2. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them; but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 3. For we who have believed do enter into rest, as he said, So I swore in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest — although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4. For he spoke in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise: And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. 5. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. 6. Seeing therefore it remains that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief, 7. again he limits a certain day, saying in David, Today — after so long a time, as it is said — Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 8. For if Jesus had given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.
1. By the rest that remains is understood the release from the Law of the Ceremonies, and thus the state of the Church in the New Testament.
2. This rest, that is, the state of the New Testament, is said to have been pictured by the rest of God on the seventh day, and by the rest in Canaan.
3. The state of the New Testament having now come, the seventh day, being a shadow, is therefore no more, but altogether gone.
In answer, this serves:
1. These passages cannot then be brought to bear against all those who still hold something moral in the fourth commandment, and who consider that a day must remain for the worship of God. For this text absolutely denies the seventh day and all rest, except that other rest which still remains.
2. It is absolutely denied that by the rest that remains is meant the release from the Law of the Ceremonies in the days of the New Testament. Neither in the matter itself, nor in the text, is the least proof to be found for such a position — rather the contrary is found. For (a) all and every one against whom the Apostle here speaks, even unbelievers, were already released from the Law of the Ceremonies — Christ had already brought all the shadows to nothing — and so they too would have been in the rest; whereas the Apostle nevertheless declares that none but the true believers, the people of God, enter into this remaining rest. (b) The Apostle exhorts the godly, who were already released from the ceremonies, to strive to enter into the rest that still remains for the people of God.
3. The Apostle speaks of a rest of which those also who lived in the Old Testament could become partakers, if they believed, and of which they were deprived by nothing but unbelief (v. 2). This rest is therefore not the release from the ceremonies, but something else which one could obtain even under the ceremonies, and could also lack after the ceremonies were gone.
4. It is likewise denied that the state of the New Testament was pictured by the rest in Canaan and by the rest of the seventh day. (a) God's Word says this neither here nor elsewhere. (b) To make God's rest on the seventh day a ceremony of the state of the New Testament — of the abolition of the ceremonies of the Old Testament — which must necessarily be maintained by those who would bring this text forward against the Sabbath, is without proof, and reaches too far. Since the seventh day existed before the fall, it cannot be a ceremony of something that looks forward to Christ and to the state of the New Testament.
It appears then that the seventh day was never a picture of the days of the New Testament. The Apostle shows here that neither Canaan nor the Sabbath was the true rest, but that believers had to have another rest in view — one they did not yet possess — namely, the eternal rest in heaven, which believing souls enjoy as soon as they depart this life. Revelation 14:13: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on; yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors. This blessed rest was proclaimed to the Church of the Old Testament, and is now also proclaimed in the days of the New Testament through the gospel (v. 2, etc.).
VI. If the fourth commandment belonged to the moral law, and thus bound us, then the seventh day counted after creation would have to be observed. But the seventh day, in order after creation, is not observed; instead, in its place, the first day of the week is. Therefore, etc.
To relieve the mind of this difficulty, note the following points:
1. In one and the same commandment several things which belong together can be commanded, in such a way that one matter is aimed at principally, and the other serves the principal matter, and is thus also commanded along with it. For example, a magistrate commands that on such a day such a tax be brought to such a person. Three things are commanded there: time, tax, and recipient — but you see well enough that it is the tax that matters; that is the principal thing, yet the other two must also be obeyed. So here: time and matter are both commanded in the fourth commandment — holy rest, and the seventh day along with it. Holy rest has the first place in the commandment: Remember — not the seventh day, but the Sabbath day, to keep it holy; the time follows after — the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD. These two must not be separated, yet holy rest is the principal thing.
2. In that precise moment of the seventh day after creation there lies no mystery. For when God commanded the human race in Paradise to sanctify the seventh day, it was impossible for men, once spread over the globe, to begin the Sabbath at the same hour; it had to differ by twelve hours, so that as one part of the world began and kept the Sabbath, the other part might still work twelve more hours, and when the one part had finished and begun to work again, the other part would still be keeping the Sabbath — for when it is day in one part of the world, it is night in the part directly opposite.
We also know that in the time of Joshua one week was around twenty-four hours — that is, a whole day-and-night — longer than other weeks (Joshua 10:13), so that all the following Sabbaths from that time on came twenty-four hours later than the previous Sabbaths. Thus the Sabbath from then on always came twenty-four hours later than the seventh day reckoned strictly in order from creation.
It has likewise never been considered a difficulty that the Jewish congregations, being scattered abroad, began and ended the Sabbath some hours earlier or later than others, according as they were scattered eastward or westward. Thus we see that in that small interval, or in some hours — even were it twelve — there lies no mystery, and that this can happen while the matter remains whole and intact.
3. One must distinguish between the commandments and the circumstances within the commandments; the circumstances may change while the same matter remains. For example, the second commandment requires the manner of worship. Now, in the Old Testament God wished to be served by means of outward elements, as shadows; this entire manner God has abolished in the New Testament, putting in its place the serving of God in an invisible way, without that outward apparatus. This change is already far greater than the shifting of a few hours. Although this is not expressed in the commandment itself, it is nevertheless well enough known that the ceremonial commandments, with respect to their ground, must be referred to the second commandment. Yet again, the fifth commandment promises long life in Canaan; that applied only among the Jews. God abolishes that in the New Testament, and puts in place of Canaan each one's own dwelling place (Ephesians 6:3). So one must likewise distinguish between the matter commanded and the commanded circumstance in the fourth commandment. And so the matter is preserved here too, even though there occurs a shifting of some hours.
4. One must hold strictly to the commandment, neither taking anything away from it nor adding anything to it, nor interpreting anything in a different sense. Coming then to the fourth commandment, we find there the commandment, its application, and its reason. The commandment is: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy; six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. Tell me now — is there a single word or letter in it about creation? Indeed not; only about the seventh day that followed six days of labor. But how then shall one know which seventh day — is it a matter of indifference, left to each person's own liberty? No: God had already, from Adam onward, made known that he wished to have the seventh day from them in order, which can also be seen from the reason appended to the commandment. This circumstance of the seventh day, precisely in order from creation, does not belong to the essence of the commandment.
When God lets the commandment stand — to sanctify the seventh day — and changes something only in the circumstance, so that the commandment and the sanctifying of a seventh day remain, but through a shifting of some hours the day is no longer the seventh counted strictly from the course of creation, then no change occurs in the essence of the commandment, but only in a small circumstance. Now, God has once shifted the Sabbath by a day, so that the Sabbath, reckoned strictly according to the course of time, is indeed not the seventh from creation, yet it nevertheless remains the seventh day that follows six working days. This shifting did not happen by human whim, but through Christ and his Apostles.
One might think: should not the New Testament assembly-day have been expressed by an express commandment? I answer: we are not to dictate to God. Whether we would not hold to that one commandment, or whether through our own blindness we did not understand its meaning, is God then obliged to give us that commandment once again, and in such words as we ourselves might devise? That one commandment must be enough for you. So then, what other day would you desire than the one which Christ and his disciples kept and delivered to the church, and which is now confirmed by a sixteen-hundred-year practice in the Church?
But what reason was there for changing that day? It is foolishness to demand reasons of the Sovereign Lawgiver. If his commandment is not enough for you, no reason will satisfy you. Yet I do see, throughout the whole New Testament, a very great change in the entire service of God. I see that the Redeemer of the world rose on the first day of the week. I see that by the keeping of the first day of the week the Church is set apart from the Jews, Turks, and heathen. I see that by this the whole Jewish worship is condemned, and that the heathen ought to be convinced of their godlessness. But the ground for the sanctifying of the seventh day is the commandment; for this first day it is the example of Christ and the Apostles, by whose transmission this day has now for more than sixteen hundred years been kept as a festival in the Church — indeed, it bears the name of being kept; the profaning of it will fall upon your own head. As for the practice of it, I will not enter into that here; whoever desires something further on that, let him see the Steps of the Spiritual Life by my now blessed father. I will only briefly note these points here.
1. One must not imagine that the Sabbath requires a more spiritual service than other days, but only a different manner of service.
2. One must not be superstitious, occupying oneself with a host of petty questions — may one do this, may one do that — for if one is only intent upon sanctifying the day, one will soon enough know what hinders joyful delight in God, what agrees with the following of God's rest, and what is done merely out of regard for men's displeasure or favor, or out of a view to profit, etc.
3. One must not place holiness in mere resting, considered by itself apart from sanctifying. But to sanctifying belongs:
1. An approval, a delight in that commandment, that God has given his people the Sabbath, and that one willingly sets that day apart, and longs for it.
2. That one sets God's example before oneself, and sanctifies that day in imitation of it.
3. That one spends that day in holy rest, so that one does not regard rest merely by itself — as though it were in itself one part of the sanctifying — but as also belonging to the manner of sanctifying.
4. That one occupies oneself in contemplating the works of God — of Creation, Preservation, Government, and Redemption — as appears from the Song for the Sabbath, Psalm 92.
5. That one rejoices and is refreshed in this contemplation, so that the Sabbath is to us a joyful day — a day of delight in the LORD.
6. That one praises, glorifies, and extols God for the communication of his goodness and his other attributes.
7. That through this one keeps the eternal rest in view and longs for it. And that to this end:
1. One holds holy assemblies of the congregation, to glorify God openly, etc.
2. That one goes to visit the afflicted, so as to refresh them also on the Sabbath.
3. That one shares from the fruit of one's diligent labor and gain toward the support of the poor; that one delights oneself with holy conversation and mutual love, stirring one another up and comforting one another.
4. That one rejoices in the singing of Psalms. Blessed, blessed, blessed shall he be who makes it his business to sanctify the Sabbath.
Thus we have occupied ourselves with considering God's dealings with his Church in the second period, which was from Abraham to Christ. We proceed then to the third, which is:
From Christ to the Consummation of the World.
Having seen the administration of the Covenant of Grace from Noah to Abraham, and from Abraham to Christ, cast your eye now also, in this chapter, upon its administration from Christ to the consummation of the world.
After all those manifold promises, and the longing expectation of believers, the Lord Jesus Christ came at last into the world. When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman. Galatians 4:4. God is manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. 1 Timothy 3:16. And God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who, being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Hebrews 1:1,2,3. So that we now see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. Hebrews 2:9. And he must reign as King until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 1 Corinthians 15:25.
This state of his Church in the New Testament, which in the Gospels is called the Kingdom of Heaven, excels most highly in glory and excellence above all the preceding times of the Church — a glory which may further be seen in these four privileges.
1. In the Old Testament, worship took place through bodily, visible things, which either foreshadowed the coming Messiah or were themselves but partial blessings, insofar as believers were instructed by them in the mysteries of the gospel, according to that time and manner of dispensation. So, with respect to that observance, they were a heavy yoke, a yoke of bondage. What a multitude of ceremonial observances there was — the painfulness of circumcision, the constant watchfulness not to touch nor taste, so many bodily uncleannesses, and then again washings and sacrifices, in which there was of themselves no power to take away sin, but only poor rudimentary beginnings, etc.
But in the New Testament all these things have been abolished, and in place of all those bodily services the Lord has instituted a more spiritual, more exalted, more invisible, more immediate service. No fixed place is now required; we no longer stop short at the shadows without reaching the substance, but the true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and in truth. John 4:23. Now we may pass by all earthly things. Hebrews 10:19–22: Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a feast day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ's. Colossians 2:16,17. You are called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. Galatians 5:13.
2. Although before Abraham's calling the Church existed among all nations without distinction, yet it had little progress and glory; blindness and idolatry overflowed everything. But after the calling of Abraham, the LORD separated all the other nations from himself, and let them walk in their own ways. But he made known his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He has not dealt so with any nation, and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Psalm 147:19,20. But after the coming of the Lord Jesus that distinction of nations was taken away: and in every nation he that fears him and works righteousness is accepted with him. Acts 10:35. Of this Paul speaks, Ephesians 2:13,14: But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off are made near by the blood of Christ; for he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition, etc.
It was prophesied, Genesis 49:10: unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be. Indeed, Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets are full of the calling of the Gentiles, and behold, just as it was prophesied, so it has also been fulfilled — we are witnesses of it. At first the gospel of the kingdom was proclaimed to the Jews, but when they rejected it, it was carried over to the Gentiles. Acts 13:26,46–48: It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you; but seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so has the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set you to be a light of the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad. And their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. Romans 10:18.
One might wonder: why is Abraham called an heir of the world, a father of many nations, and of believers, seeing that Enoch and Noah lived before Abraham, and were eminently believing and holy men, and Abraham himself and the Messiah descended from them? I answer: neither Jews nor Gentiles received the knowledge of the gospel and their conversion through Enoch and Noah, but through Abraham; and just as Paul calls himself a father of believers because he had begotten them through the gospel (1 Corinthians 4:15), so Abraham is a father of many nations, because through his ministry they have been converted, and so he is an heir of the world.
But how were we converted through the ministry of Abraham and not through the ministry of Enoch and Noah? Because faith and the gospel were not propagated through them, but through Abraham indeed: Abraham's fathers and kindred were idolaters — see Joshua 24:2. God calls Abraham directly, without means, and reveals to him the coming Mediator, and that he should come forth from him, and commands him to teach these mysteries to his children — in which he was also accounted faithful by God. Genesis 18. And he promises also to bless him, so that the Gentiles too, through his ministry, should be converted, and so become his children according to the Spirit. And thus the gospel was propagated in his seed, and from his seed to the Gentiles, and so it has also come to us — so that, tracing back through whom we came to the knowledge and love of the gospel, we must at last end in Abraham. There it stops: his father was an idolater, and he himself was called by God extraordinarily. Paul says, Romans 9:7,8: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children; but, In Isaac shall your seed be called — that is, not the children of the flesh are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. Galatians 4:28: Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
3. Now, although the Spirit of adoption to sonship, etc., may indeed have been present in the Old Testament, yet everything there was, as far as one can judge, scarcer, and fewer persons had part in it; and even those who did have part in it possessed those blessings in small measure. But in the New Testament God gives everything more abundantly. Of the more abundant measure of the Holy Spirit we read, Isaiah 44:3,4: I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring. And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses. Joel 2:28: And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, etc. With this Spirit Christ, at his coming, baptized his children. Matthew 3:11. This Spirit he also poured out richly upon them after his ascension. Titus 3:6.
From this there flows also a greater measure of light, according to the prophecy of Isaiah 11:9: The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the bottom of the sea. And according to the testimony of John, 1 John 2:27: And the anointing which you have received of him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth.
From this there also flows a more excellent holiness. Isaiah 60:21,22: Your people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in its time.
From this there blossoms a nearer and more familiar access to, and communion with, God. Hebrews 4:14,16: Seeing then that we have a great high priest, who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God — let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
From this there blossoms a greater comfort and peace in the soul. Isaiah 54:13: And all your children shall be taught of the LORD. Psalm 72:7: In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon be no more.
4. In the Old Testament the whole administration was stricter and conducted in a more legal manner; but in the New Testament it is sweeter, and more evangelical. See the comparison, Hebrews 12:18,22: For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, etc., but you are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem — so that this applies especially to the days of the New Testament: How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things! Romans 10:15.
These, and yet others, are indeed privileges of the days of the New Testament, so far as the degree is concerned; but these blessings are not poured out equally upon all the days, nor over all the congregations of the New Testament: rather, one period receives more of them than another, and now the part of the church in one place receives more, while in other places the church experiences greater scarcity.
It has pleased God that the Church of the New Testament, too, should be a militant Church. When the Apostles on the day of Pentecost were filled with the Holy Spirit, the whole city was stirred; the people, who had come from every part of the earth to Jerusalem at that time and had heard those things, proclaimed it each in his own land. The Apostles shortly thereafter spread out among the Gentiles, and traveled everywhere — east and west, south and north — and filled the whole world with the sound of the gospel, and founded congregations everywhere. Thus was fulfilled that prophecy, Psalm 2:8: Ask of me, and I shall give you the heathen for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. Psalm 72:8: He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
But the devil was not idle; he stirred up his subjects, and set on foot dreadful persecutions, both particular and general, in order to destroy the name of Christ and of Christians. Indeed, he sought even to bring his own subjects into the Church itself, and through them stirred up all manner of errors and heresies within the Church, so that the Church had to contend both from without and from within. Thereby the course of the gospel was checked, and the truth was driven out of Africa and Asia, though to this day there still remain remnants of Christianity there, however wholly decayed and corrupted.
In Europe the Church, through Constantine the Great, indeed obtained outward liberty and peace; but the world then came with force into the Church on the one hand, and on the other side the Antichrist grew strong, until, having gained power, he lorded it over everything, and through his false doctrine changed the Church into a Babel, so that for many hundreds of years the Church was in a wretched and sorrowful state — although God knew his own, and now and then, here and there, raised up witnesses to speak the truth — until the light broke through with power, by means of Zwingli, Luther, Calvin, and others, whereby the Church again began to flourish. Yet the shedding of Christian blood had neither measure nor end, until God tore the soul of his turtledove out of the claws of that Beast, the Whore of Babylon, who had become drunk with the blood of the saints.
But although the Church obtained greater outward liberty and safety, the devil has not ceased to disturb the Church through all manner of heresies and errors; no sooner was one discovered and overcome than another arose again — so it has gone on to this present day. And what is yet to come we do not know so precisely. But this we do know: that it will remain a militant Church for as long as the world stands.
Yet Holy Scripture speaks plainly of the fall of Antichrist, especially in Revelation 18, which we confidently expect.
Holy Scripture also speaks plainly of the conversion of the Jews. Among so many passages, also Romans 11:25–27: For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
And although we dare determine neither the time nor the place, we nevertheless reckon that the state of the Church, after the fall of Antichrist, will be exceedingly glorious in comparison with former times. Among other passages, see Romans 11:12,15: Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness? For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
Here it is spoken of what benefit the casting off, and the future receiving-back, of the Jews would bring to the Gentiles. If the fall and rejection of the Jews can be riches and reconciliation, then the fullness and receiving of the Jews would likewise be riches and life from the dead. Now, to the Gentiles the fall and diminishing and rejection of the Jews was for riches and reconciliation; so the fullness and receiving of the Jews would likewise be for them riches and life from the dead.
How multiplied is the Jewish nation! Three parts of the world are full of the souls of Jews. When these shall one day, in general, receive the Lord Jesus, and God shall pour out upon that people, most abundantly, his gifts and graces unto faith and sanctification — what then shall the Church consist of but a mighty people and a countless multitude of members! And how can it be otherwise but that their light and fire shall break forth among the Gentiles on every side? A thing to be desired!
Now compare these three periods with one another, and consider how glorious the last is above the first two, and take it to heart that we live in the last and most blessed of times. Rejoice over it. How the believers of the Old Testament yearned after this time, how they prophesied of it, how they prayed for it, how the Church sang of it in various Psalms! And now that we have it, should our heart not even be moved with joy, but be as though nothing extraordinary had happened to us?
Thank and glorify God for it. If the ancient congregations thanked and praised God for the shadowy service, and could not satisfy themselves in the practice of it, how much more joyfully ought we to praise the LORD, and acknowledge that inconceivable grace which has been shown to us above them, and above the present-day heathen.
Walk now in that light. O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the LORD. Isaiah 2:5. Walk worthy of the calling wherewith you are called. Ephesians 4:1. Thus we have seen the administration of the Covenant of Grace in general.