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children from the dead. To realize these things will strengthen our faith, still our
murmurs, minister to our patience, and enable us to walk worthily:--
"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar
off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were
strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb. 11: 13).
#8.
"According to that which was spoken" (Rom. 4: 18).
pp. 75, 76
We have seen much to encourage us regarding the character of the promises of God,
and also the character of the God Who has made the promises. How do we know these
promises? And what warrant have we to believe them?
Among the passages that have been before us in this series are the following:
Rom. 4:; Gal. 3:; II Pet. 1: and 3:; II Cor. 7: 1; Eph. 1: 13, 14. In each of these
passages we shall find an insistence upon the Word of God as the vehicle of the promise
and the ground of our faith. Let us consider these passages in the order given above.
In Rom. 4: we do not find that Abraham rested his faith in the Scriptures, for the
simple reason that there were no Scriptures at that time. The parallel, however, is clear,
for the Scriptures are but the spoken word of God perpetuated for all time, and Abraham
believed what God had said:--
"Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations:
according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be" (Rom. 4: 18).
Abraham did not vaguely believe in a benevolent Providence, or in a "destiny that
shapes our ends". There was no fanaticism in believing so strange a promise. As the
simple statement of Gen. 15: 6 records: "He believed in the Lord."
Now it is most essential to us all that we really do recognize that when we believe the
testimony of the Scriptures, be they written by Moses or Paul, we are actually "believing
in the Lord". Gen. 15: and Rom. 4: together make this plain:--
"And he believed in the Lord" (Gen. 15: 6).
"He believed . . . . . according to that which was spoken" (Rom. 4: 17, 18).
Turning next to Gal. 3: we find this same inter-relationship:--
"He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of One, And to thy seed, which is
Christ" (Gal. 3: 16).
Earlier and later in the chapter, we have the following:--