THE SUPREME TEST OF ABRAHAM'S FAITH.
By W. N. G.
FAITH being based on the Word of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is necessarily preceded by the preaching of that Gospel. The purpose of the Gospel is to proclaim a way of peace with God for a disobedient race, the condition of peace being faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as a Saviour from sin and its penalty. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Rom. 10:17. Believing, yielding to, the Word of God is faith, and obeying the Word is the proof of faith. “Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Luke 6:46. “He that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.” Verse 49. God not only provides the way of salvation, but He calls the sinner’s attention to it, and gives him the necessary help to walk in the way. “Despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” Rom. 2:4. No sinner ever can of himself exercise true repentance. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Cor. 2:14. Then because “the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” Ch. 1:21. Paul tells us that the Gospel was preached unto Abraham. “The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” Gal. 3:8. That was the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Abraham; for “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse [penalty] of the law, being made a curse [having suffered the penalty] for us; . . . that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles [nations] through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Verses 13, 14. The Gospel was preached to Abraham by promise and by type. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” Verse 16. “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Verse 29. So we come into the benefits of the promises not through Abraham, but through faith in Christ. We come in just as Abraham did, by believing the promise. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness,” and that is the only way in which any one can get righteousness—by the obedience of faith. So much for the Gospel by promise to Abraham. The prototype of the true seed was Isaac; the seed was Christ, and in Christ the true seed, or posterity, are called. The Lord’s word is, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” Then Isaac was a type of Christ. He was also the one through whose line of descendants Christ should come according to the flesh. Paul asks the question, “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?” Rom. 4:1. It is evident that he did not find anything as “pertaining to the flesh;” for he was one of those of whom it is said, “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. Abraham’s experience was pre-eminently a series of trials of faith. He was led from faith to faith, and his seed were to be the children of faith in the promises made to him. The supreme test of his faith was his call to sacrifice his son Isaac. “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” Heb. 11:17, 18. “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.” Rom. 4:20, 21. Abraham had come to this point of faith, where he “staggered” at nothing, by repeated tests. It had been about fifty years since his first call to come out from his country and his kindred. He showed faith from the very start, but it took a long schooling, and slow and steady growth, like the great oaks amid which he lived at Mamre, to prepare his faith for this crowning ordeal. Here he was called to realize to some degree what it means deliberately to give up an only-begotten son, and so prove his faith in God’s power, and wisdom, and justice. But this trial was not for Abraham alone. The promises were to him and to his seed, and so are the trials of faith. We of to-day ought to be able to undergo greater trials of faith than Abraham. We have before us those who in every age were noted for their faith, and the manner in which God has both expressed and manifested His pleasure at their endurance. We are not called to sacrifice an only son; but we are called to self-sacrifice, to “put off the old man with his deeds.” And this is not to be done “in a figure,” in the hope that the things to which we are inclined to cling so tenaciously will be restored. This sacrifice is to be real and permanent, and no one can undergo the ordeal with any less faith than Abraham had. Fanatics and superstitious heathen have sacrificed their children through a mistaken idea that they were exercising faith, when they were ignorant of the merest rudiments of faith. Abraham’s righteousness consisted in his obedience, which was the proof that he believed God. “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.” 1 Sam. 15:22, 23. Men will do some notably conspicuous thing, when they will scorn some apparently small thing, when the latter carries with it a far greater exercise of faith. The case of Naaman the Syrian is a case in point. 2 Kings 5:8–14. The story of Abraham’s faith, and God’s imputing it to him for righteousness, was written for us. “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.” We are now confronted with conditions, and still more stringent conditions are awaiting us in the near future, that tend to make the keeping of the commandments of God exceedingly trying to the faith of those who fear the edicts of man more than the Word of God. “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” is a question that the Lord has left for each one of us to answer on personal account. W. N. G.