Even as Abraham believed God.
The faith of Abraham
I. A simple, child-like dependence on the naked word of God.
II. An acceptance of and trust in God’s promised Saviour.
III. A renouncing of his own works as meritorious.
IV. A faith that wrought by love, making him the friend of God.
V. One that overcame the world, leading him to seek a better country.
VI. One that evinced its reality by a self-denying obedience. (T. Robinson.)
I. Its object.
1. The promise of a seed, and consequently of a Saviour.
2. The faith of the gospel not simply Divine promise of salvation, but the specific offer of a Saviour.
II. Its ground.
1. Neither reason nor sense.
2. But the solemnly given, clearly stated, perfectly sufficient, wholly unsupported Word of God.
3. So the Christian rests on the offer of Christ (John 3:36).
III. Its acting.
1. Instantaneous.
2. Full-hearted (Romans 4:21).
IV. Its effect. It was counted to him for righteousness.
1. The nature of justification. Possessing no righteousness of his own, Abraham had the righteousness of another (not yet revealed) set to his account.
2. The time. The instant a soul believes, whether he is cognisant of it or not. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
I. It was faith in the personal revealed, covenant Jehovah; not merely in a word or sign, or in a prospect.
II. The bond of covenant. Faith on the one side, God dealing with a sinful creature as righteous on the other. The elements of that bond are--
1. Gracious acceptance.
2. Gracious revelation
3. Gracious reward of obedience. (W. Roberts, M. A.)
In Abraham the attitude of trustfulness was most marked. By faith he left home and kindred, and settled in a strange land; by faith he acted upon God’s promise of a race and an inheritance, although it seemed at variance with all human experience; by faith he offered up his only son, in whom alone that promise could be fulfilled (Acts 7:2-5; Romans 4:16-22; Hebrews 11:8-12; Hebrews 11:17-19). Thus this one word “faith” sums up the lesson of his whole life. (Bp. Lightfoot.)
Abraham justified by faith
Powerful as is the effect of these words when we read them in their first untarnished freshness, they gain immensely in their original language, to which neither Greek nor German, much less Latin or English, can furnish any full equivalent. “He supported himself, he built himself up, he reposed as a child in his mother’s arms” (such seems to be the force of the Hebrew) in the strength of God, in God whom he did not see, more than in the giant empires of earth, and the bright lights of heaven, or the charms of tribe and kindred, which were always before him. It was counted to him for “righteousness.” It “was counted to him,” and his history seals and ratifies the result. His faith transpires not in any outward profession, but precisely in that which far more nearly concerns him and every one of us, in his prayers, his actions, in the righteousness, uprightness, moral elevation of soul and spirit which sent him on his way straightforward, without turning to the right hand or to the left. (Dean Stanley.)
He was justified by faith when his faith was mighty in effect, when he trusted in God, when he believed the promises, when he expected a resurrection of the dead, when he was strong in faith, when he gave glory to God, when, against hope, lie believed in hope; and when all this passed into an act of a most glorious obedience, even denying his greatest desires, contradicting his most passionate affections, offering to God the best thing he had, and exposing to death his beloved Isaac at the command of God. “By this faith he was justified,” saith St. Paul; “by these works,” saith St. James, i.e., by this faith working this obedience. (Jeremy Taylor.)
Marks of a justifying faith
He that hath true justifying faith believes the power of God to be above the power of nature; the goodness of God above the merit and disposition of our persons; the bounty of God above the excellency of our works; the truth of God above the contradiction of our weak arguings and fears; the love of God above our cold experience and ineffectual reason; and the necessity of doing good works above the faint excuses and ignorant pretences of disputing sinners; but want of faith makes us generally wicked as we are, so often running to despair, so often baffled in our resolutions of a good life; but he whose faith makes him more than conqueror over these difficulties, to him shall Isaac be born even in his old age, the life of God shall be perfectly wrought in him; and by this faith, so operative, so strong, so lasting, so obedient; he shall be justified, and he shall be saved. (Jeremy Taylor.)
Faith accounted for righteousness
We call a child’s imitation of copper-plate writing a copy, though every letter betrays a fault, and the whole effort, strictly speaking, more a caricature than a copy, but there is sincere intention in it, and therefore we account it a copy. In imputing faith for righteousness God acts by way of encouragement, and uses the most certain means by bringing us to righteousness at last. (E. W. Shalders, M. A.)
Trusting the promises
Last winter a man crossed the Mississippi on the ice, and, fearing it was too thin, began to crawl on his hands and knees in great terror; but when he gained the opposite shore, all worn out, another man drove past him gaily, sitting upon a sled loaded with pig-iron. That is just the way most Christians go up to the heavenly Canaan, trembling at every step lest the promises shall break under their feet, when really they are secure enough for us to hold our heads and sing with confidence as we march to the better land.
Abraham a witness to the doctrine of justification by faith
I. The text speaks of a gracious blessing. The blessing Abraham received was that his faith was accounted to him for righteousness. This is another term for justification. For the amplification of this part of the subject see Romans 4:1-8. Justification is a gracious blessing, for it includes--
1. The forgiveness of sins.
2. “The being brought into the right relationship with Divine law. When a man has broken the Divine law, he is not justified--he feels himself condemned and excluded from the Divine favour. Could he be but once restored, and brought into harmony with that Divine law, he would be justified.”
3. “The being brought into a state of potential righteousness. While justification is not to be confounded with sanctification, it implies that sanctification will take place in the processes of spiritual recovery through which we shall pass. We are justified among other reasons because we shall be sanctified.” How precious, then is this blessing!
II. The text states by whom this blessing is enjoyed. “They which are of faith.” This means--
1. Those who for salvation put no trust in any human work. They have no confidence in the flesh, in hereditary privileges, or national distinctions. (The Jews trusted in the fact that they were the natural descendants of Abraham.)
2. Those who through faith alone seek to obtain and retain spiritual life. “Those who are not working that they may obtain the favour of God as a meritorious reward, but who are believing that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself; and that the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
III. The apostle introduces a witness to these truths. To those who boasted that Abraham was their father, and who yet clung to the law for justification, the apostle declares that Abraham obtained the favour of God not as a worker but as a believer.
1. The object of Abraham’s faith. “He believed God.” Bearing in mind the incidents of his life, this is abundantly clear that the Being in whom he trusted was the Almighty.
2. The subject of Abraham’s faith.
3. The result of his faith.
Lessons:
1. There is no righteousness possible to us but through faith.
2. The inheritance of the gospel is a spiritual inheritance.
3. The Divine promise is the support of faith. (R. Nicholls.)