Part 31 (2/2)
You ask, ”What then is this Word of God, and how shall it be used, since there are so many words of God?” I answer The Apostle explains that in Ro His Son, Who was lorified through the Spirit Who sanctifies For to preach Christ hteous, to set it free and to save it, if it believe the preaching For faith alone is the saving and efficacious use of the Word of God, Romans x, ”If thou confess with thy mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe with thy heart that God hath raised Hiain, ”The end of the law is Christ, unto righteousness to every one that believeth”
[Rom 10:4]; and, Romans i, ”The just shall live by his faith” [Rom
1:17] The Word of God cannot be received and cherished by any works whatever, but only by faith [Hab 2:4] Hence it is clear that, as the soul needs only the Word for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not by any works; for if it could be justified by anything else, it would not need the Word, and therefore it would not need faith But this faith cannot at all exist in connection orks, that is to say, if you at the same time claim to be justified by works, whatever their character; for that would be to halt between two sides, to worshi+p Baal and to kiss the hand [1 Kings 18:21], which, as Job says, is a very great iniquity [Job 31:27 f] Therefore the s in you are altogether blameworthy, sinful and damnable, as Rolory of God” [Roain, ”There is none just, there is none that doeth good, all have turned out of the way: they are becoether” [Rom 3:10 ff] When you have learned this, you will know that you need Christ, Who suffered and rose again or you, that, believing in Hih this faith becoiven, and you are justified by the merits of another, namely, of Christ alone
[Sidenote: Justification by Faith]
Since, therefore, this faith can rule only in the inward hteousness”; and since faith alone justifies, it is clear that the inward man cannot be justified,whatsoever, and that works, whatever their character, have nothing to do with this inward man On the other hand, only unGodliness and unbelief of heart, and no outork, uilty and a daht to be the first concern of every Christian to lay aside all trust in works, and h faith to grow in the knowledge, not of works, but of Christ Jesus, Who suffered and rose for him, as Peter teaches, in the last chapter of his first Epistle [1 Pet 5:10]; since no other work makes a Christian Thus when the Jews asked Christ, John vi [John 6:28 f], what they should do that they ht work the works of God, He brushed aside the multitude of works in which He saw that they abounded [John 6:27], and enjoined upon the, ”This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He hath sent For Him hath God the Father sealed” [John 6:29]
Hence true faith in Christ is a treasure beyond cos with it all salvation and saves from every evil, as Christ says in the last chapter of Mark, ”He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be condemned” [Mark 16:16]
This treasure Isaiah beheld and foretold in chapter x, ”The Lord shallword upon the land, and the consuhteousness” [Isa 10:22]; as if he said, ”Faith, which is a brief and perfect fulfilhteousness that they shall need nothing hteousness” So also Paul says, Rohteousness” [Rom 10:10]
[Sidenote: Faith and Works]
[Sidenote: Commands reveal Weakness]
Should you ask, how it comes that faith alone justifies without works offers us such a treasury of great benefits, when so many works, ceremonies and laws are prescribed in the Scriptures, I answer: First of all, remember what has been said: faith alone, without works, justifies, makes free and saves, as we shall later make still more clear Here we must point out that all the Scriptures of God are divided into two parts--cos that are good, but the things taught reveal are not done as soon as taught; for the coive us the power to do it; they are intended to teach a nize his inability to do good and may despair of his powers That is why they are called and are the Old Testament For example: ”Thou shalt not covet” [Ex 20:17]
is a co sinners, since no one is able to avoid coveting, however ainst it
Therefore, in order not to covet, and to fulfil the command, a man is compelled to despair of himself, and to seek elsewhere and from some one else the help which he does not ind in himself, as is said in Hosea, ”Destruction is thy own, O Israel: thy help is only in Me”
[Hos 13:9] And as we are with this one command, so we are with all; or it is equally impossible or us to keep any one of theth]
But when a h the commands has learned to know his weakness, and has become troubled as to how he may satisfy the law, since the law must be fulfilled so that not a jot or tittle shall perish, otherwisetruly hu in his own eyes, he finds in himself no means of justification and salvation Here the second part of the Scriptures stands ready--the prolory of God and say, ”If you wish to fulfil the law, and not to covet, as the law dehteousness, peace, liberty and all things are promised you; if you believe you shall have all, if you believe not you shall lack all”
For what is impossible for you in all the works of the law, many as they are, but all useless, you will accoh faith For God our Father has s depend on faith, so that whoever has faith, shall have all, and whoever has it not, shall have nothing ”For He has concluded all under unbelief, that He ht have mercy on all,” Roive what the commands of God ask, and fulfil what the law prescribes, that all thingsof the commands He alone commands He also alone fulfils Therefore the pro to the New Testament, nay, they are the New Testament
And since these prohteous, free and peaceful words, full of all goodness, it cos to theether taken up into them, that it not only shares in all their power, but is saturated and made drunken with it For if a touch of Christ healed, how much more will thisof the Word, cos that are the Word's This, then, is how through faith alone without works the soul is justified by the Word of God, sanctified,and ave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name” [John 1:12]
[Sidenote: Faith Justifies]
Froreat power, and why no good work nor all good works together can equal it: no work can cling to the Word of God nor be in the soul; in the soul faith alone and the Word have sway As the Word is, so it lows like fire because of the union of fire with it It is clear then that a Christian man has in his faith all that he needs, and needs no works to justify him And if he has no need of works, neither does he need the law; and if he has no need of the law, surely he is free frohteous man” [1 Tim 1:9] And this is that Christian liberty, even our faith, which does not indeed cause us to live in idleness or in wickedness, but hteousness and salvation
[Sidenote: Faith Fulfils the Commands]
This is the first power of faith Let us now examine the second also
For it is a further function of faith, that whoard, since it considers him truthful and trustworthy For there is no other honor equal to the estihteousness hich we honor hireater than truthfulness, and righteousness, and perfect goodness? On the other hand, there is no way in which we can show greater conteard him as false and wicked and to suspect him, as we do e do not trust hiards Hi hest worshi+p of God, that we ascribe to Hiht to be ascribed to one who is trusted Then the soul consents to all His will, then it hallows His naood pleasure, because, clinging to God's promises, it does not doubt that He, Who is true, just and wise, will do, dispose and provide all things well And is not such a soul, by this faith, in all things most obedient to God?
What commandment is there that such obedience has not abundantly fulfilled? What s? But this obedience is not rendered by works, but by faith alone On the other hand, what greater rebellion against God, what greater wickedness, what greater conte His promises? For what is this but to make God a liar or to doubt that He is truthful?--that is, to ascribe truthfulness to one's self, but to God lying and vanity? Does not a man who does this deny God, and in his heart set up himself as his own idol? Then of what avail are works done in such wickedness, even if they were the works of angels and apostles? [Rohtly, therefore, has God concluded all--not in anger or lust, but in unbelief; so that they who i the works of chastity and ht not be confident that they will be saved; they are included under the sin of unbelief, and must either seek mercy or be justly condemned
But when God sees that we count Hireat honor which is due Hi us true and righteous for our faith's sake For faith works truth and righteousness by giving to God what belongs to Hihteousness It is true and just that God is truthful and just, and to count Him and confess Him, so is to be truthful and just So in I Sam ii, He says, ”Them that honor Me, I will honor, and they that despise Me, shall be lightly esteemed” [1 Sam 2:30] So Paul says in Rohteousness, because by it he lory to God, and that or the sahteousness if we believe [Rom 4:3]
[Sidenote: Faith Unites with Christ]
The third incomparable benefit of faith is this, that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom And by this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Eph 5:31 f] And if they are one flesh and there is between thees, since hue, it follows that all they have they have in co soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as if it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ clais that cannot be estirace, life and salvation; the soul is full of sins, death and condemnation Now let faith come between them, and it shall corace, life and salvation are the soul's For it behooves His which are His bride's, and to bestow upon her the things that are His
For if He gives her His body and His very self, how shall He not give her all that is His? And if He takes the body of the bride, how shall He not take all that is hers?
Lo! here we have a pleasant vision not only of communion, but of a blessed strife and victory and salvation and redemption For Christ is God and man in one person, Who has neither sinned nor died, and is not condehteousness, life and salvation are unconquerable, eternal, o of faith shares in the sins, death and pains of hell which are His bride's, nay, makes them His own, and acts as if they were His own, and as if He Himself had sinned; He suffered, died and descended into hell that He ht overcome them all Now since it was such a one who did all this, and death and hell could not s Hihty duel For His righteousness is greater than the sins of all er than death His salvationsoul by the pledge of its faith is free in Christ, its Bridegrooainst hell, and is endoith the eternal righteousness, life and salvation of Christ, its Bridegroolorious bride, without spot or wrinkle [Eph 5:27], cleansing her with the washi+ng in the Word of life, that is, by faith in the Word of life, of righteousness, and of salvation Thus Hekindness, and in ment, as Hosea ii says [Hos 2:19 f]
Who, then, can fully appreciate what this royal lory of this grace? Here this rich and Godly Bridegroom Christ marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeeood It is now impossible that her sins should destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and sed up in Hihteousness in Christ her husband of which she ainst all her sins in the face of death and hell, and say, ”If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in Whom I believe, has not sinned, and all His isof Solomon says, ”My beloved is mine, and I am his”