The Promises of God

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 9, 1863

The Promises of God.

THE promises derive preciousness from the root and principle from which they spring. They are so many beams of Christ, the Sun of righteousness, and impart a light which discovers his excellency. They are the crystal streams of that river of life which proceeded out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, (Rev. xxii. 1), whose waters in time of drouth never fail, but with their overflowing plenty satisfy the thirsty, with their cooling virtue allay the heat of the wearied, and with their sweetness cheer and revive the drooping and dejected spirits.

They are precious objects of "precious" faith, as the apostle styles it (2 Pet. i. 1). True it is, that the quickening influence and virtue of the promises reach every grace of the Spirit. By them hope is kept alive in its expectation of good, patience is supported under difficulties, holiness is perfected, love is inflamed, and a blessed fear of God is preserved. But yet all this is not done by the immediate intercourse which these graces have with the promises; but by the intervention of faith, which first feeds upon them as the manna of the gospel, and then communicates the sweetness and virtue that it receives from them in a suitable manner to every other grace. As the root first sucks the juice and sap from the earth, of which it makes a concoction, and then sends forth a digested nourishment to the several branches and fruit that hangs upon the tree; so doth the radical grace of faith distribute to other graces that strength and life which it is partaker of from Christ and his promises. As we have nothing from God but we receive by and through Christ: so no grace is partaker of any virtue and influence from Christ but by the intervention of faith.—Spurstowe's "Wells of Salvation Opened." A. D. 1654.