“He wavered not through unbelief; but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God. Wherefore also it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.” Rom. 4: 20, 22.

The question is frequently asked by those who have not yet come to faith, and who on this account do not yet fully understand it, What, pray, may be the reason why faith is so highly esteemed by the Lord and is capable of such great things? The answer is simple: It gives glory to God. It humbles the sinner in the dust as one who deserves nothing and is capable of nothing, and must on this account present himself to God as dependent on the promises of a free compassion. It glorifies God in the acknowledgment of His power and love which will bestow redemption; of His word and faithfulness also, since these are held to be so strong and glorious that the sinner, although he has nothing else, can commit himself to them. Faith sets God and man in the right relation to one another — God on the throne of His sovereign grace, from whom all must and shall come; man in his misery and nothingness, as one who has nothing in himself but guilt and its curse.

In the other virtues of the Christian life, such as humility and love, there is always something that is wrought in man, that he can feel, and of which he might be able to boast. True faith on the other hand is the confession of utter poverty and helplessness. It says: “I have nothing left, I can also do nothing. I must now simply remain silent to hear what God speaks, to see what He will do, to receive what He will give.” It is truly the attitude of a beggar, by which man is laid in the dust. And yet no angel in heaven can give God so much honor as faith, when out of the surrounding darkness and sin and poverty it still relies on God and expects from Him the certain fulfilment of that which He has promised.

Alas how great is the foolishness of the heart of man. How many are there still, who really imagine that they give glory to God by their unbelief. They fancy that, when they mourn heavily over themselves and their misery, telling how unworthy they are to appropriate such grace because they have so deep a sense of the greatness and holiness of God, this is to the honor of God. On the contrary, it is really to His dishonor: as if He were not sufficiently gracious towards the unworthy, not sufficiently powerful to rescue the utterly wretched, not faithful to perform His word. No: faith alone gives glory to God, for it sets no limits to the Holy One of Israel, It has but one question, What has God said? When it has once known this, then it asks nothing further about possibility or truth or anything else. The word of God is enough for the soul. Like Abraham, it gives glory to God by being strong in faith.

Beloved reader, it is a terrible sin to rob God of His honor. By being unbelieving you make yourself guilty of this offence. As God has revealed Himself in the gospel more gloriously than in the law, so is the sin of unbelief in relation to the promises much more dreadful than that of disobedience to the commandments. For this reason, I entreat you, believe what God says. Ask not what you are or what you have, but if there is anything with respect to which God will have it that you shall now believe, or if there is any promise with which He comes to meet the ungodly. Here is one: “Christ died for the ungodly.” Receive that word, keep it in your heart, ponder and believe it, and rest not until it abides as essential truth with you, even as it is with God: “Christ is for the ungodly.” Yes: this very day, O souls, give glory to the Lord, by going to Him as the gracious, almighty, and faithful Redeemer; commit yourselves to His word, be strong in faith and thereby give glory to God, as you go to Him.

Anxious ones, in God’s name, why do you not believe? This is the only thing that you are to do, the only thing that God will have — only believe.

“By faith even Sarah herself received power since she counted Him faithful who had promised.” Heb. 11: 11.

See here again one of the examples, so simple and intelligible of what faith is: “She counted Him faithful who had promised.” There was a time when Sarah doubted, for she looked to nature, and it said to her that she should no longer bear. Through the repeated promises of the Lord she was nevertheless led to look to Him who had given the promises, and keeping in mind His divine faithfulness she found there was no alternative for her but to believe; and the only account which she could give of the supernatural expectation of faith was this: “He is faithful that promised.” (Heb. 10: 23).

The same way must still be followed by those Christians who desire to be liberated from their doubts and to reach the blessed experiences of the life of faith. We must learn to have done with the reasonings of the understanding; with the questions which nature would have first answered, such as, “How can these things be?”, “Whereby shall I know it?”, with calculations as to whether our own wisdom and power are perchance sufficient to bring us where we must know; and we must hold ourselves content with the view expressed in this sentence: “He is faithful that promised.” The only thing which one has to ask is this, “Is there a promise also for me?” If the word of God gives us the answer: “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the chief,” then that is sufficient to bring us down before the Lord and to make us expect that He will perform the promise to us: “He is faithful that promised.”

O, if souls would only keep themselves occupied with the consideration of God’s faithfulness, how would unbelief be ashamed. Whenever anxious feelings multiply in you, and you fear for yourself and your work, go, O soul, bow down in silent meditation and adoration before your God as the faithful One, until your whole spirit becomes filled with the thoughts and the peace that spring from this attribute. Go over all the assurances in the Scriptures, so glorious and clear, that the unchangeable One Himself shall fulfil His counsel, and that He simply desires of souls the stillness which observes and expects the performance. Take counsel with the believers of the old and new covenants, reflect on their ways and their leadings, and they will tell you with one accord that their strength and their peace have been — the faithfulness of God. O, pray, accustom yourself, every day, with every promise of God that you read, with every prayer that you make for the attainment of what God has spoken to you of, with every fear that arises in you as to whether you shall be indeed partaker of the offered salvation, — pray, accustom yourself to fasten your eye undividedly on that word, to let your whole heart be filled with it: “He is faithful that promised.” And, above all, even when you are not yet able to appropriate everything to yourselves, forget not to praise and to thank God for His faithfulness; praise and adore Him as the Faithful One: adoration will confirm you in faith in Him. Nor must you set your hope on the divine faithfulness only when you are taking the first steps on the way of conversion, seeking for forgiveness and acceptance, but, especially in the midst of the struggle, to be confirmed unto the end and to be unreprovable in the day of our Lord Jesus. It is with his eye fixed on this hope that Paul says “God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 1: 8, 9); just as in that glorious work about sanctification that finds so little belief, “The God of peace sanctify you wholly,” he also immediately adds: “Faithful is He that calleth you, who will also do it.” (1 Thess. 5: 23, 24).

It was by this faith, this loyal esteem of the faithfulness of her God and reliance upon it, that Sarah received power to bear. So far is this faith also from leading to sluggishness and indifference that it will increase activity. It teaches the soul to wait upon God spiritually and earnestly, that He may point out to it what it must do, and that it may learn by experience to understand the deep significance of that word: “Work, for God worketh in you.” Believing in His faithfulness also to work in it, it has courage to work after Him. “By faith she received power, since she counted Him faithful who had promised.”

“As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name. ” John 1: 12.

The receiving of the Lord Jesus is here said to be the same as believing on His name. One receives Him as soon as one believes, yea through believing on His name. His name is always Jesus, Savior. As soon as the soul believes this, and on this account looks on Him as the man who certainly saves the sinner, it not merely thinks: “He can do this, yet I know not if it will take place with me,” but it regards Him as a Savior given by God also for himself, and thus believes on His name that it essentially expresses what Jesus is, — as soon as, I say, the sinner does this, he receives Him. He acknowledges Him in His grace as Jesus, appropriates Him in the faith which says, “He is also for me”; he receives Him as a gift bestowed by God, set before Him to be appropriated, receives Him as that which His name signifies — Savior, the only and perfect Savior. He acknowledges that in himself there is nothing good nor ever shall be; he foresees manifold unfaithfulness and backsliding; he feels himself to be wholly powerless: but he receives Jesus as a Savior, as one who undertakes the whole work, who from day to day will continue that work and accomplish it in the leading, the keeping, and the sanctification of the soul. And according as he believes further in that name, in the absolute truth, the far-reaching signification, the inexhaustible power of that name, in this same measure does he receive Jesus more perfectly in the riches of His manifold blessings, and experience how true it is: Jesus saves. He gives power to men to become the children of God, enables them also to say, through the Spirit, “Abba, Father,” and with all the dispositions of children — confidence, fear, love, obedience — to rejoice in God’s fatherly love.

Reader, are you seeking salvation? O, then, receive Jesus. He is offered to you by God as a Savior. Receive Him as a gift of the Divine love; acknowledge Him as really also for you; believe that, with His name, it is the full truth that the work of saving a sinner may well be entrusted to Him; receive Him in that faith, coupled with the simple surrender of yourselves, dead and wretched as you are, into His hands, and be assured that you shall not come out deceived. Away with all doubtings. In the name of God I ask you, as upright dealing is for you indispensable to being saved: Do you believe in the name of Jesus, or do you not believe in it? Do you believe in the name JESUS, given by the true God to His Son, in order that you may build your hope upon it? O sinner, pray, believe that the name, Jesus, is divine truth. Come, say today, “Yes: He is the Savior of that which was lost “; no longer shut Him out, but receive Him in the heart, with simple faith in His word, I am Jesus. Begin with this, continue with this, go forward with this, believe evermore in the name JESUS; receive Him with this, and He shall give you power to become a child of God. Here once more what God says to you today, “As many as received Him ” — thousands on earth and in heaven can corroborate the statement that it is really so — “to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name.”

“First they gave their own selves to the Lord.” 2 Cor. 8: 5.

In the word of His promise, through the gracious working of His Spirit, the Lord gives Himself to us; through faith we receive Him, and we know that He is ours. This faith, as the outgoing of the soul to Jesus to meet Him, is at the same time a surrender to Him. We can never receive the Savior and His grace without at the same time surrendering ourselves to Him, to be sealed and filled with salvation. And as faith knows that the Lord is ours, because His word tells us that He gives Himself to us, so it also knows that He receives us as His own, because His word assures us of that.

Faith has thus two sides: the believing reception of the Lord Jesus with all that He gives, and the believing surrender of the soul with all that it has to the Lord. The one cannot be without the other. I take Jesus as my King to rule over me, as a Savior to free me from sin; He cannot perform His work in me, if I do not surrender myself to Him. Confidence in Jesus is thus at the same time a committal of one’s self to Him.

Anxious soul, see here again the simplicity of faith. If you wish to know what you have to do, the answer is, Give yourself to the Lord Jesus.

Give yourself to the Lord Jesus, just as you are. You have to give yourself to Him, not as an offering that is worthy of Him, as one who is already His friend and on whom He can look down with complacency. No: you have to surrender yourself to Him as one that is dead, whom He has to make alive, as an enemy whom He must reconcile and forgive, as a sinner whom He must save. The multitude of your sins, the corruption which you feel struggling within you, the very insincerity of your coming to Him, are thus no reason why you should not venture to give yourself to Him. No: just the reverse: these are the proofs that you stand in need of a Savior; they are at the same time the tokens given by the word of God of those in whose behalf Jesus came. O sinner, just as you are, surrender yourself to Jesus.

Surrender yourself also to Him wholly and undividedly. Keep nothing back of what is yours. Think not that He is to do one part of the work and you the rest. No: submit entirely to His estimate of you. Although you do not yet feel the power to make a separation from all sins, although you still feel that the heart is attached to one thing and another, and will cleave to them, make confession of all this before Him; for it is also through the confession of sins that we surrender ourselves to Him. Understand that the more you surrender yourself entirely to Him, the more completely is He able to accomplish His work for you. Think of His complete surrender for you and to you; think of the claim of His love upon you and the complete salvation with which He will fill you, and let your surrender to Him be complete and undivided.

And, above all, surrender yourself to Him in faith. You have perchance given yourself to Him ere this, but it brought you no peace, for you did not know if the surrender was accepted by Him. You would have a token from heaven, a divine inspiration in your heart to tell you that He had accepted you. And this was wrong. He has said: “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.” God has said: “Return ye, and I will receive you.” When you surrender yourself to Jesus, you must believe that; in that word you must have sufficient. You are to take your stand upon it, because God speaks the truth. However wretched you are, however imperfect your surrender is, it must be a surrender of faith, of faith that He receives you, because He has said it. Although you find it difficult to believe that so firmly, although it seems to you very hazardous for so great a sinner, it is, nevertheless, your duty to believe that, when you surrender yourself to the Lord, He receives you. Do not set yourself above God. Do not say, I have done my part but I know not if God will do His. No: think of the word; say to the Lord that it is on His promise that you surrender yourself; day after day be occupied with the faithfulness of God’s promise and you shall gradually come to the blessed certainty: He receives me. Yes: you, shall even be able to say, He has received me.

“O woman, great is thy faith; be it done unto thee even as thou wilt.” Matt. 15: 28.

A great faith: all should know that there is nothing on earth so desirable. Many may wish to have it and may pray for it, and yet there are but few that come to it. And why? A principal reason is this: they will not walk in the way that leads to it; they are afraid of the school where that faith is taught. Or, they have very wrong ideas concerning the way to attain that great faith, as if, for instance, it were a gift which is bestowed at once. So perverse are their thoughts, that when the Lord is going to hear their prayers and is to lead them in another way than they had expected, they suppose that He is no longer caring for them. Come, all ye that long for more faith, learn from the Canaanite woman, how the Lord will bring you to it.

First of all, He will try you. The Canaanite woman had a daughter possessed by a devil, and what a trial was not that to her? And so the Lord still sends His children trials of very different kinds. With one, it is trial in the physical life; with another, trial in the family; with another again it is inward vexation of soul; with still more it is hidden conflict with sin. But trial there must be; for so long as the flesh has everything agreeable and according to its inclination, the soul will never wholly and with power cleave to the Lord. It is by necessity that it is driven out to seek all its salvation in the Lord and to commit itself to Him. Blessed trial, the message of God to teach more faith, how many regard thee as the messenger of His wrath and aversion, instead of humbly suffering themselves to be led by thy hand to the Lord.

Further: when the Lord is to lead a soul to great faith, He leaves its prayers unheard. So it was with the Canaanite woman. He answered her not one word, and when He did at length reply to her, the answer was still more unfavorable than His silence. This is always the way. If the answer came immediately, how would the soul get acquainted with the Lord Himself. His gifts would occupy its attention so much that it would overlook the Lord Himself. It must first be put to the proof, whether it can take its stand upon its Lord and what He has provided, without any answer; whether He and His word are to suffice for it; yea, whether it will, even when His word appears to be opposed to it, still not doubt His love, but rather commit itself to it. A faith so great that it still cleaves to the Lord in spite of apparent rejection: this precious lesson, which is above all else acceptable to the Lord, is learned and practiced only in the conflict of unheard but persevering prayer.

Once more: the soul that is to come to great faith must be humbled. What a hard word for the poor heathen woman: “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” But she suffers it to be well-pleasing to her, and uses it as her strongest argument. She overcomes the Lord with His own weapons and turns His rejection into her plea: “Even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall under their master’s table.” Do you also likewise: whenever, in following the Lord, your sins are laid bare to you, and your unworthiness held up before you, and the word makes you feel that you are an ungodly and accursed sinner, always answer with the woman, “Yea, Lord, I am very wretched; all that my heart testifies of sin is true: ‘yet, yet even the dogs eat’; and with such a Lord as Thou art, there is overflowing grace even for the most wretched.” The deeper the root, the stronger the tree; the deeper the descent of humility, the stronger the faith; for then it leans, not half on itself, but wholly on the Lord.

See here, thou, my soul, Jesus’ school for faith. Let it not grieve you, if the lessons are sometimes heavy; He has told you of this beforehand. But hold fast this conviction: when my soul is brought into trial, when my sin and unworthiness become more distinct, and press me the deeper down, I shall look upon all this as the way along which the all-loving Jesus is to lead me to that life of faith, in which He takes such delight; and when I am dispirited, I shall read again the story of the Canaanite, and I shall be strengthened by the glorious victory and reward of her conflict of faith. The more difficult the school, the more glorious the prize; “Be it done unto thee, even as thou wilt.”

“So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Rom. 10: 17.

Here is the simple answer to the question, How does faith arise in the soul? The Spirit, the author of faith, uses for this purpose a means, and that means is the word. It cannot be otherwise. The Spirit does not work apart from the faculties of man, but by means of them. His supernatural power makes use of the natural gifts which remain to man after his sin, renews and sanctifies them. By awakening desire, He bends the will; by presenting the loveliness of Jesus, He works upon the affections; and thus also, when He works faith, He does so by presenting the truth, in order thereby to awaken confidence.

I take it for granted that my reader is one who has been awakened; who, desiring to be saved, is looking out for rescue; who longs to be freed from his sin, and asks, How, pray, do I come to faith in Jesus? The answer is, By the word. But what am I to do with the word? Do with it what you should do with any ordinary message which you cannot at once believe. Suppose that tidings is brought to you of a great inheritance which comes to you. You had not been expecting it, and cannot believe that so great happiness and wealth have fallen to your lot. What are you to do? You will inquire if the messenger is trustworthy. If you are sure of this point, in order to obtain all certainty, you will ask him once and again and again to say that you are the person intended; or if he has brought a letter of conveyance or a will, you will read it repeatedly. And thus, by explanation and confirmation of his message, you will become convinced and will believe. This is just: faith is by the word.

Not otherwise is it in divine things.

When the message comes to you, Jesus is a Savior for sinners, also for you, do you ask if you are to believe Him who speaks? The answer is, Yes: for He is the true God. Do you ask if there is no misunderstanding, or if you are really the person intended? Yes: for the message is to every sinner. Then does it become your duty to listen earnestly to the message; to ask repeatedly, yea unceasingly — for the matter is of moment — Shall I or shall I not believe? And the more you simply take the word, read and read again the message of God, contemplate one after another the promises with which God has made it sure that the Savior is for every sinner, the sooner shall you feel constrained to say, It is true; God says it; I must believe it.

O, poor sinner, pray cease to ask what your own heart feels, as one who would be saved. Cease to seek the ground of faith in yourselves. Attend now to the word: Jesus is the Savior of sinners. Listen to it again and yet again. Let your soul become occupied the whole day with the thought: God says it; it must be. And continue with this, the more wretched and dark the condition of your heart may be. Ask simply from day to day, What says the word? Take and carry that word in your heart, and you shall speedily experience that “faith is by the word” And so far from making you think that faith is thus a work of your own power will such activity be, that you shall acknowledge that it is by the word the Spirit works. Your use of the word gives you reason, gives you right, to hope for His help. You shall experience how little faith is merely a reasoning of the intellect,but at the same time how faithful God is to bestow His grace on the use of means, and to crown with His blessing the soul that honors His word.

“So walk in Him, established in your faith, abounding in thanksgiving.” Col. 2: 17.

The idea which is here expressed by the apostle is, that where faith is active and growing it will always go coupled with thanksgiving; as it stands written: “Then believed they His words; they sang His praise.” As faith stirs up to thanksgiving, so it exercises a reactive influence; it in turn strengthens faith. Faith and thanksgiving belong to one another and keep one another. The more I believe, the more I shall thank; the more I thank, the more I shall believe. The lack of faith is the reason that men give thanks so little; the neglect of thanksgiving hinders and weakens faith. This is a fault to which too little attention has been paid and from which many a one suffers great loss. Let us consider it for a moment.

The reason why thanksgiving has the effect of increasing faith is manifest. Faith has its greatest power in the fact that in believing the soul wholly forgets itself, and with undivided energy looks to God and hears Him — goes out wholly to Him. This is in like manner precisely the nature of thanksgiving, that in it the soul must be entirely occupied with God, with the contemplation of His goodness, the adoration of His Godhead, the consideration of His ways, the expression of His wonders. Accordingly, the more the mind is exercised in this work, and is taken up with the thought of all this, the more shall there be fixed and rooted in it the conviction that the Lord is truly a God on whom it is its duty to rely. If thanksgiving, the express mention of His omnipotence, His love, His faithfulness, His perfection shall fill the soul, the result cannot but be that the soul shall suffer it to be concentrated on God. He that has but a single word of such a God to build upon has enough. In such thanksgiving the soul will have its desires roused, its courage strengthened, its inward devotion to Him deepened. The shamefulness of its unbelief will be very manifest as an offence against such a God. The remembrance of unbelief, of my unworthiness, my lack of love, my insincerity, my weakness and my uncertainty as to whether I shall remain faithful, — all this shall be utterly blotted out by what the thankful soul has expressed, namely, that God in His compassionate and omnipotent love is greater than all the force of sin and Satan. It cannot be otherwise, if thanksgiving increases faith. Hence that word: “Abounding in faith with thanksgiving.”

And now I wish to ask you who here say that you are seeking the increase of faith this question, Are you really doing this by thanking God? If you are still unconverted, go and thank Him that you are still not in hell. O, what a wonder it is that in His longsuffering He has still borne with you and spared you. Thank Him for this. Thank Him that He gave His Son Jesus for sinners. Yes: although you are not yet able to say that He is yours, fall upon your knees and thank God for His unspeakable gift to this sinful world and also to you. Thank Him for His gracious promise which has also come to you. O sinner, though you have as yet received little or nothing for yourself, pray be not silent, but adore and speak of His wonderful compassion. Let this be a daily work with you. Keep yourself intensely occupied with it: let your soul abide in contemplating what God is, what He has done, what He has promised He will do; how gracious, how faithful He is and how mighty to deliver and endeavor, however imperfectly, to express this on your knees before Him. In every acknowledgment of your bitter misery, thank Him that He is God; confess before Him that He is great and good. This thanksgiving will teach your soul that you may calmly confide in God. And, throughout the whole conflict of faith, you will often have to say that, when everything looked utterly dark and your wretchedness was very deep, if you but rendered thanks for what God was, hope then once more revived in your soul. Whatever else fails you, this always remains — a God to praise. Never was your case so wretched, that you had nothing more left to be thankful for. Only put this remedy to the proof: in the midst of all that is dark, grievous, and incomprehensible for the soul, only begin to praise, and your praising shall speedily merge in believing. Praising and believing are one. [Translator’s note: The Dutch here admits of a play upon words, “Loven en gelooven zijn een.”]

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” Heb. 11 [Note: The Dutch version has, “Now faith is a firm foundation of the things which we hope for,” etc.] Many people think that faith is something which at its best is but very uncertain: not so certain, for example, as sight or hearing. They appear to think that faith is a sort of imagination by which we must take pains to be assured in our own hearts that we shall be saved. The result of this erroneous conception is that they often attempt to exercise it, but find no rest in it, or perhaps even come to regard all assurance of faith as conjecture, self-deception, or presumption. They do not understand what faith is. The Epistle to the Hebrews might have taught them. There faith is represented as the highest certainty, as a sure foundation on which one can build and safely trust oneself. In faith there is nothing that moves or can be moved: faith is a strong basis, and that indeed for the simple reason that faith depends upon what stands more firmly than rocks or mountains, namely, the word of God. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of God endures to eternity. And on this account it is that to come to rest, peace, and stability, the soul has simply to ask, “What has God said?” Is there anything that God has commanded me to believe? Has He spoken anything that is directed to every sinner, and that every sinner is bound to believe? If so, then it is my duty to search out this and to receive it as being the word of the true God, and therefore sure and certain. And what is it, then, that every sinner is to believe I Simply this — that Christ has been given by God also to him as a Savior. “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ is come into the world to save sinners,” — all sinners without distinction, even the chief. Let the sinner that longs to be saved only hold fast that truth, and be occupied with it. Let him go out of himself, so as to be hemmed in with this thought, until his heart be filled with it: Jesus is come to save sinners, even me; Jesus is given by God also to save me: Christ is certainly for me. Not because I have believed all this or have been converted; no, but because I am an ungodly one. And, whether I believe it or not, it remains truth that Christ is offered by God also to me. Before I believe it, it is the truth: the truth of it thus does not depend on anything in me that is yet to take place. The truth of it is grounded on the fact that God has said it. I have, therefore, nothing to do but to hear according to the word of God, and to receive it in my soul, until it becomes with me a settled conviction: it must be true, Christ is a Savior also for me, for God has said it. Every questioning in the form of, Are you already converted ? or, Are you worthy of it? or, Are you indeed sincere? I bring to silence with the simple answer: Whoever or whatever I may be, Christ is for the sinner, is also for me. And according as I day by day accustom myself simply to ask, Am I sure that God has said it? shall I experience that faith is a firm foundation. Standing on this basis, I cannot waver, but I come to an ever clearer insight into the truth that faith is nothing but a receiving and committing of oneself to the word of the true God. Hence it cannot be otherwise than that “faith is a firm foundation.” And now, anxious one, why do you not believe? O, faith is no imagination that you too are a chosen one, but a laying of yourself down on the immovable rock of the word of the Lord. “God loved the world,” “Christ died for the ungodly”; and now He comes to ask you — see to it, I entreat you, that you give Him an answer: “If I speak the truth to you, why do you not believe?”

“We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” Rom. 3: 28.

The Lord has revealed to us two ways, which should be able to lead us to Him and salvation. Along the one the law leads us, along the other grace. Both ways are good and come from God: yet there is after all only one of the two for us to use, by reason of our weakness. The law is good for those who have the power to obey and to follow it. Grace is the way for those who are powerless and can accomplish nothing. The law demands and must be fulfilled: grace gives and needs simply to be received. The law says, “Do this and thou shalt live”; grace says, “Believe and thou shalt be saved.” The law demands works, yet gives no strength to produce them: grace asks for faith, which it also of its own power awakens by its promises — faith, which is nothing but the acknowledgment of weakness and a consent to be willing to receive everything for nothing. The law directs me to the height, to a mountain too steep to climb: grace to the valley, where I have only to sink down to be preserved.

Of the utmost importance is it that I should know well the distinction betwixt these two ways, choose the right one, and walk in it. For in our present sinful condition there is only one of these ways that is still really of service to us, although man on the contrary would just very fain walk in the other. Well is it for us that God has left us in no doubt as to which one is wished for and approved of by Him.

It was especially the Apostle Paul whom God chose to point out to us clearly the way of salvation — as he has done most fully in his Epistle to the Romans. The conclusion of his argumentation we have in the text quoted at the head of this chapter. He had shown how all mankind, Jews as well as heathen, had missed the glory of God. They could not fulfil, they did not wish to fulfil, the law of God. The law must be perfectly obeyed, otherwise it works only wrath. The law knows nothing of grace, only of right. God has searched the world, and there was none righteous, not even one. By the law every mouth was stopped, and the whole world made guilty before God. It was a declaration of the law itself, “By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” (Rom. 3: 20). “But the righteous shall live by faith.” That, the Lord Jesus had proclaimed. By His death God had reconciled the world. He had allowed the punishment and the demands of the law to be fulfilled. He has permitted an everlasting and infinite righteousness to be brought in. For nothing had God suffered it to be offered: without price and without money is this righteousness ours, through the free gift of God. In the case of the corrupt, curse-deserving, and powerless sinner, there can be no talk of service or works: only of faith, “Submission to the righteousness of God.” Where that faith in Jesus and the word of His grace is found, there is the sinner made partaker of the righteousness of God, faith being simply the eye to see it as it was offered, the hand to receive it, and the activity for appropriating it for himself. He that believeth is justified.

What folly, then, is it still to look to one’s own works or merit. Sinner, are you resolved to work? Then must you keep the whole law, and that perfectly; and thus you shall certainly be condemned. Do you desire to be justified? Only believe in Christ and His righteousness, in God and the promises of His grace, as intended also for you. By that faith man is justified without the works of the law.