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![in him was yea—Greek, "is made yea in Him"; that is, our preaching of the Son of God is
confirmed as true in Him (that is, through Him; through the miracles wherewith He has
confirmed our preaching) [Grotius]; or rather, by the witness of the Spirit which He has given
(2Co 1:21, 22) and of which miracles were only one, and that a subordinate manifestation.
Matthew Poole's Commentary The apostle here glveth a reason why he had made truth and
sincerity so much his business (which reason obligeth us also, who are as much bound as he to
study a conformity to Christ); saith he:
The Son of God, who was preached among you, that is, Jesus Christ; who, though (as some
observe) he is in these Epistles no where called God, but Lord, is here called
the Son of God; which can be understood in no other sense, than by eternal generation; for those
who are only the sons of God by adoption, are not the subjects of ministers’ preaching. We read
of this Silvanus, 1 Thessalonians 1:1 1 Peter 5:12: some think that he was the same person who
is called Silas, Acts 16:19.
Of
Timothy we have heard before. They were both ministers who (as well as Apollos before
mentioned) had laboured in the gospel amongst the Corinthians.
Was not yea and nay, but in him was yea: now (saith the apostle) that Christ, whom both I, and
other ministers of the gospel, have preached to you, is not uncertain and unconstant, one thing at
one time, and in one place, another thing at another time, and in another place. He was only one
and the same; his doctrine was always certain and uniform, and consistent with itself; and our
conversation ought to be suitable to him and his doctrine.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleFor the Son of God, Jesus Christ,.... The apostle having
asserted that the Gospel preached by them was not yea and nay, variable and different, or what
was affirmed at one time was denied at another, proceeds to point out the subject of the Gospel
ministry,
the Son of God, Jesus Christ; that Christ is "the Son of God": this article he began his ministry
with, Acts 9:20, and all the apostles affirmed the same thing; and which is of the greatest
moment and importance, and ought to be abode by, insisted on, and frequently inculcated; as that
he is the eternal Son of God, existed as such from everlasting, is of the same nature, and has the
same perfections with his Father; and therefore is able to destroy the works of the devil, for
which he was manifested in the flesh, and every way equal to the business of redemption, which
he has finished; and having passed into the heavens under this character, is a powerful advocate
with the Father; and which renders him a sure foundation for the church, and a proper object of
faith: that the Son of God is Christ, anointed to bear and execute the office of a mediator in the
several parts and branches of it; a prophet to teach his people, a priest to make atonement and
intercession for them, and a King to govern and protect them: and that the Son, who is become
the Lord's Christ, is Jesus, a Saviour; and that salvation is alone by him, to which he was
appointed from eternity, and was sent in the fulness of time to effect it; and by his obedience,
sufferings, and death, is become the author of it, and is the only able, willing, and suitable
Saviour for poor sinners. This is the principal subject and strain of the Gospel ministry; and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-20-320.jpg)
![(11) He adds also with himself his companions, as witnesses with whom he fully consented in
teaching the same thing, that is, the same Christ.
(s) Was not different and wavering.
(t) That is, in God.
EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Meyer's NT CommentaryHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-19.htm"2 Corinthians 1:19. Ὁ γὰρ τοῦ
Θεοῦ υἱός] or, as Lachmann, Rückert, and Tischendorf, following preponderating testimony,
have it rightly: ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ γὰρ υἱός (γάρ in the fourth place; see Fritzsche, Quaest. Luc. p. 100;
Ellendt, Lex. Soph, I. p. 339; Hermann, ad Philoct. 1437), marks the τοῦ Θεοῦ as emphatic, in
order to make what is to be said of Christ, οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ κ. οὔ, felt at once in its divine
certainty. To be God’s Son and yet ναὶ κ. οὔ would be a contradiction. In the whole ὁ … Ἰ. Χ.
there lies a solemn, sacred emphasi.
ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν διʼ ἡμῶν κηρυχθείς] reminds the readers of the first preaching of Christ among them, of
which Paul could not but remind them, if they were to become perfectly conscious, from their
experience from the beginning, that Christ had not become ναὶ κ. οὔ. But in order to make this
first preaching come home to them with the whole personal weight of the preachers, he adds, in
just consciousness of the services rendered by himself and his companions as compared with the
later workers, a more precise definition of the διʼ ἡμῶν, with more weighty circumstantiality: διʼ
ἐμοῦ κ. Σιλουανοῦ κ. Τιμοθέου. For the two latter had been his helpers in his first labours in
Corinth. See Acts 18:5. From this it is obvious why he has not named others, as Apollos, but
simply these (Calvin thinks, that these had been most calumniated); hence also there is no need
to suppose any intention of making his assurance more credible (Chrysostom, Theophylact, and
many others). A side glance at the Christ preached by Judaistic opponents (2 Corinthians 11:4) is
here quite foreign to the connection (in opposition to Klöpper, p. 86 f.).
Σιλουανοῦ] Universally so with Paul (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1); also in 1 Peter
5:12. In the Acts of the Apostles only the shortened name Σιλας appears. Silvanus is here placed
before Timothy, because he was an older apostolic helper than the latter. See Acts 15:22 ff.
οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ κ. οὔ] He has not become affirmation and negation, has not showed Himself as
untrustworthy, as one who affirms and also denies (the fulfilment of the divine promises, 2
Corinthians 1:20), as one who had exhibited such contradiction in himself. This Paul says of
Christ Himself, in so far as in the personal objective Christ, by means of His appearance and His
whole work, the ναί in reference to the divine promises, the affirmation of their fulfilment, is
given as a matter of fact. Wrongly most expositors (comp. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact)
understand Χριστός as doctrina de Christo (“our gospel of Christ is not changeable, sometimes
one thing, sometimes another, but it remains ever the same”), an interpretation here specially
precluded by verses 20 and 21. This may be urged also against the similar interpretation of
Hofmann, that, with the very fact that Christ has come to the readers through preaching, there
has gone forth a Yea (the affirmation of all divine promises), without any intervention of Nay.
Olshausen and Rückert take it rightly of Christ Himself; but the former puts in place of the
simple meaning of the word the thought not quite in keeping: “Christ is the absolute truth,
affirmation pure and simple; in Him is the real fulfilment of the divine promises; in Him
negation is entirely wanting;” and the latter arbitrarily limits ἐγένετο merely to the experience of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-22-320.jpg)
![the Corinthians (“among you He has not shown Himself untrustworthy”). Paul, however, uses
the words οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ κ. οὔ of Christ in general, and by ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν … Τιμοθ. directs the
attention of the Corinthians to the recognition of the truth on their part and out of their own
experienc.
ἀλλὰ ναὶ ἐν αὐτῷ γέγονεν] of the two only the former, i.e. affirmation (that the divine promises
are fulfilled and shall be fulfilled) is established in Him: in Christ is actually given the yea, that,
etc. In the perfect γέγονεν (different from the previous aorist ἐγένετο) is implied the continuance
of what has happened. Comp. on Colossians 1:16; John 1:3. Grotius, in opposition to the context
(see 2 Corinthians 1:20), referred ναὶ ἐν αὐτῷ γέγ. to the miracles, by which Christ confirmed the
apostolic preaching. And Beza awkwardly, and, on account of 2 Corinthians 1:20, erroneously,
took ἐν αὐτῷ of God, whose Son is “constantissima Patris veritas.”
2 Corinthians 1:19-22. Paul furnishes grounds in 2 Corinthians 1:19 f. for the assurance he had
given in 2 Corinthians 1:18; then refers his veracity to the stedfastness bestowed on him by God,
2 Corinthians 1:21 f.; and finally, 2 Corinthians 1:23, makes protestations as to the reason why
he had not yet come to Corinth.
Expositor's Greek TestamentHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-19.htm"2 Corinthians 1:19. He has
appealed to the faithfulness of God, and this suggests the thought of the unchangeableness of
Christ.—ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ γὰρ υἱὸς κ.τ.λ.: for the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was proclaimed
among you by us. The position of τοῦ Θεοῦ before γάρ (as in the true text) brings out the
sequence of thought better, as it brings Θεοῦ (the connecting word) into prominence.—διʼ ἐμοῦ
καὶ Σιλουανοῦ καὶ Τιμοθέου: even by me and Silvanus and Timothy. These three brought the
Gospel to Corinth (Acts 18:5), and were closely associated during the Apostle’s labours in that
city (1 Thessalonians 1:1, 2 Thessalonians 1:1). Silvanus is only another form of the name Silas;
he was a prophet (Acts 15:32), and apparently, like St. Paul, a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37), and
shared the Apostle’s perils during the whole of his second missionary journey (Acts 15:40 to
Acts 18:18). We hear of him again at Rome (1 Peter 5:12).—οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ καὶ οὔ, ἀλλὰ ναὶ ἐν
αυτῷ γέγονεν: was not Yea and Nay, but in Him is (sc., has been and continues to be) Yea. There
is no doubtfulness or vacillation in the words of Christ (Matthew 7:29, John 12:50); and He
continually emphasised the positive and certain character of His teaching by the introductory
formula Ἀμὴν, ἀμήν. More than this, however, is involved here. Christ, who is the Object and
Sum of St. Paul’s preaching, is unchangeable (Hebrews 13:8), for He is not only “true”
(Revelation 3:7), but “the Truth” (John 14:6): He is, in brief, ὁ Ἀμήν (Revelation 3:14), and so it
may be said that an Eternal “Yea” has come into being (γέγονεν, through His incarnate Life) in
Him.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ] St Paul now
labours to impress the Corinthians with the weight of the commission with which he had been
entrusted to them. It was nothing less than Jesus, the Promised and Anointed One, the Son of
God, Whom he had preached.
was preached] Literally, proclaimed, as by a herald. The word has come usually to mean an
exposition of God’s Word in the Christian congregation.
Silvanus] Called Silas in the Acts. He was sent with Paul and Barnabas, as ‘a chief man among
the brethren,’ to guarantee the authenticity of the Apostolic letter which the former brought back](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-23-320.jpg)
![with them from Jerusalem to Antioch after the discussion recorded in Acts 15, since, had Paul
and Barnabas returned alone, their opponents might not improbably have disputed its
genuineness. See Acts 15:22; Acts 15:25; Acts 15:27. He was a prophet, Acts 15:32 (see 1
Corinthians 14), and was chosen by St Paul, after his dispute with St Barnabas, as his fellow-
traveller, by the advice of the Churches. Some have thought that he was the brother mentioned in
ch. 2 Corinthians 8:18, 2 Corinthians 12:18. He is mentioned by St Paul with himself in the
opening of each of the Epistles to the Thessalonians. He was with the Apostle at Philippi (Acts
16:19-40), at Thessalonica (Acts 17:1; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:10), at Berea (Acts 17:10), at Corinth
(not at Athens, Acts 17:15, Acts 18:5). He is not mentioned again in Scripture save by St Peter in
his first Epistle (ch. 2 Corinthians 5:12), in which he speaks of him as one with whom he has
little personal acquaintance, but much confidence. Silas is contracted from the fuller form
Silvanus as Lucas from Lucanus. The similar signification of the two words Lucas and Silvanus
have led some to suppose that St Luke and St Silas were the same person. But a perusal of the
narrative in Acts 16, 17, especially Acts 16:4-8; Acts 16:10-17; Acts 16:19-20, will shew that
they were two distinct persons. See Alford, Prolegomena to Acts of the Apostles, for a fuller
investigation of this point. We may observe that not only does St Paul, in his humility, identify
himself with the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 1:14) but he takes care to associate his subordinates
with him as fellow labourers in a common work. Paley, Horae Paulinae, remarks on the
undesigned coincidence between this verse and Acts 18:5. The two books are not written by the
same person. There is no particular stress laid on the fact of Silas and Timotheus having been
with the Apostle in either book, but the reference to them slips out quite accidentally. But both
declare in this accidental way that Silas and Timotheus were with the Apostle at Corinth. Such
minute agreement is beyond the power of the compiler of fictitious narrative. See a fuller
discussion of this subject in the Introduction.
was not yea and nay, but in him was yea] The Son of God, the subject-matter of the Gospel, was
no uncertain conception, sometimes affirmed and sometimes denied. The preaching of Him was
the constant affirmation of a truth, an unchangeable blessing vouchsafed in Him to mankind. For
‘in Him was yea;’ the original has the perfect, ‘in Him i.e. in God, 2 Corinthians 1:18) hath been
(or become) yea.’ For in Him ‘is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.’ Numbers 23:19;
James 1:17. How then could the change of purpose in His minister be ascribed to the capricious
infirmity of the mere human will? Cf. also Romans 15:8; Hebrews 13:8.
Bengel's GnomenHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-19.htm"2 Corinthians 1:19. Ὁ γὰρ τοῦ Θεοῦ
υἱὸς, Ιἠσοῦς Χριστὸς, for the Son of God, Jesus Christ) who is the principal subject of our
discourse. We should observe the joining together of the three appellations, thereby showing
forth firmness;[7] as also their position in the natural order; for the first is evidently not the same
as the third.—καὶ Σιλουανοῦ, and Silvanus) Luke calls him Silas; Acts 15:22 note.—ἀλλὰ ναὶ)
but yea pure and unmixed, on our part and yours.—ἐν αὐτῷ, in Himself) Christ preached, i.e. our
preaching of Christ became yea in Christ Himself. So the reason assigned [aetiologia, end.] in the
following verse is in consonance. All the promises in Christ are yea. Therefore truly also the
testimony concerning Christ Himself is yea in Christ.
[7] For “union is strength.”—ED.
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 19. - For. This is a proof of what he has just said. His preaching was as
firm as a rock; for, tried by time, it had proved itself a changeless" yea," being a preaching of
Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. By me and Silvanus and Timotheus. They are](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-24-320.jpg)
![merit, without which we should want this certainty, is due the subjective certainty of the divine
promises, the faith in their fulfilment. Billroth, indeed (and in the main, de Wette), thinks the
conception to be this: that the preachers of the gospel say the Amen through their preaching, so
that τὸ ναί refers to the living working of God in Christ, in whom He fulfils His promises, and τὸ
ἀμήν to the faithful and stedfast preaching of these deeds of God. But the saying of Amen
expressed the assurance of faith, and was done by all; hence τὸ ἀμήν would be in the highest
degree unsuitable for denoting the praedicatio. Finally, Rückert is quite arbitrary when he says
that τὸ ναί relates to the fulfilment of the prophecies wrought by the appearing of Christ Himself,
and τὸ ἀμήν to the erection of the church, which had grown out of that appearing.
The article before ναί and ἀμήν denotes the definite Yea and Amen, which relate to the
ἐπαγγελίαι Θεοῦ and belong to them. The article was not used before in 2 Corinthians 1:19,
because no definite reference of the yea was yet specifie.
τῷ Θεῷ πρὸς δόξαν διʼ ἡμῶν] a teleological definition to διʼ αὐτοῦ τὸ ἀμήν with the emphatic
prefixing of τῷ Θεῷ: to God’s honour through us, i.e. what redounds to the glorifying of God (2
Corinthians 8:19) through us.
διʼ ἡμῶν] nostro ministerio (Grotius), in so far, namely, as the ministry of the gospel-preachers
brings about the Amen, the assurance of faith in God’s promises, Romans 10:14.
Expositor's Greek TestamentHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-20.htm"2 Corinthians 1:20. ὅσαι
γὰρ ἐπαγγελίαι κ.τ.λ.: for how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the Yea. Not only
was Christ a διάκονος περιτομῆς … εἰς τὸ βεβαιῶσαι τὰς ἐπαγγελίας τῶν πατέρων (Romans
15:8), but He is Himself, in His own Person, the true fulfilment and recapitulation of them all (cf.
Galatians 3:8).—διὸ καὶ διʼ αὐτοῦ τὸ Ἀμήν κ.τ.λ.: wherefore also through Him is the “Amen,” to
the glory of God, through us. The reading of the received text conceals the force of these words.
It is because Christ is the consummation, the “Yea” of the Divine promises, that the “Amen” is
specially fitting at the close of doxologies in public worship (1 Corinthians 14:16). The thought
of the fulfilment of God’s promises naturally leads to a doxology (Romans 15:9), to which a
solemn Ἀμήν, the Hebrew form of the Greek ναί, whose significance as applied to Christ has just
been expounded, is a fitting climax. διʼ ἡμῶν in this clause includes, of course, both St. Paul and
his correspondents; it refers, indeed, to the general practice of Christians in their public
devotions.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges20. For all the promises of God in him are yea]
Literally, for how many soever the promises of God be, in Him is the yea. The Apostle here, as
elsewhere, reminds us that God’s gifts depend upon His promise. Galatians 3:14-29. And this
promise is an affirmative utterance, never to be withdrawn or explained away. Whatever gifts are
received by the ministration of His servants are the same in their character.
and in him Amen] This may refer either (1) actively, to the ratification by God of His own
promises, see Hebrews 6:12-18; Hebrews 7:20-21; Revelation 3:14; or (2) passively, to the
security we may feel that His Divine Word will never fail us. But our security is ever in Him.
Some editors read (with the Vulgate) ‘wherefore through him is the Amen,’ in which case the
meaning would be that because God’s promises were unchangeable, they were to be depended
upon.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-41-320.jpg)
![unto the glory of God by us] i.e. through our instrumentality, because by the first preachers of the
Gospel these glorious promises were made known.
Bengel's GnomenHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-20.htm"2 Corinthians 1:20. Ἐπαγγελίαι)
promises, declarations.—τὸ ναὶ—τὸ ἀμὴν, yea—amen) The words yea and amen agreeing
together, stand in pleasant antithesis to the words yea and nay, 2 Corinthians 1:19, which are at
variance with each other: yea by affirmation; amen, by an oath; or yea in respect of the Greeks;
amen in respect of the Jews; comp. Galatians 4:6 note; for yea is Greek, amen is Hebrew; or yea,
in respect of God who promises, amen in respect of believers; comp. 1 John 2:8; yea in respect of
the apostles, amen in respect of their hearers.—τῷ Θεῷ πρὸς δόξαν [to the glory of God] to God
for His glory) For the truth of God is glorified in all His promises, which are verified in Christ.—
πρὸς δόξαν, to the glory) 2 Corinthians 4:15.—διʼ ἡμῶν, by us) construed with there is, again to
be understood. For whatever may be the number of [as many soever as are] the promises of God,
there is in Him the Yea, and in Him the Amen [every promise has its yea and amen, i.e. its
fulfilment in Him]. To the glory of God (is that Yea and Amen) by us. The yea is re-echoed by
us.
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 20. - For all the promises of God in him are yea; rather, For so many as
be the promises of God, in him is the yea. All the promises of God find in him their
unchangeable fulfilment. He was "a minister to confirm the promises" alike to the Jews and the
Gentiles (Romans 15:8, 9); and "the premise of the eternal inheritance" can only be fulfilled in
him (Hebrews 9:15). And in him Amen. The true reading is," Wherefore by him also is the
Amen to God, uttered by us to his glory" (,א A, B, C, F, G, etc.). In Christ is the "yea" of
immutable promise and absolute fulfilment; the Church utters the "Amen" of perfect faith and
grateful adoration. Here, as in 1 Corinthians 14:16, we have a proof of the ancientness of the
custom by which the congregation utters the "Amen" at the end of praise and prayer. But as the
"yea" is in Christ, so it is only through him that we can receive the grace to utter aright the
"Amen" to the glory of God.
Vincent's Word StudiesAll (ὅσαι)
Wrong. As many as.
Are yea, etc.
Making this the predicate of promises, which is wrong. The meaning is that how many soever are
God's promises, in Christ is the incarnate answer, "yea!" to the question, "Will they be fulfilled?"
Hence Rev., correctly: How many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea.
And in Him Amen (καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ ἀμὴν)
The correct reading is: διὸ καὶ δἰ αὐτοῦ τὸ ἀμὴν Wherefore also through Him is the Amen. In
giving this answer in His person and life, Christ puts the emphatic confirmation upon God's
promises, even as in the congregation the people say Amen, verily. In Him is in His person:
through Him, by His agency.
By us (δἰ ἡμῶν)
Through our ministration. Christ, in and through whom are the yea and the amen, is so
proclaimed by us as to beget assurance of God's promises, and so to glorify Him.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-42-320.jpg)
![PRECEPTAUSTIN RESOURCES
JAMES DENNY
THE CHURCH’S ONE FOUNDATION.
2 Corinthians 1:15-20 (R.V)
THE emphatic words in the first sentence are "in this confidence." All the Apostle’s plans for
visiting Corinth, both in general and in their details, depended upon the maintenance of a good
understanding between himself and the Church; and the very prominence here given to this
condition is a tacit accusation of those whose conduct had destroyed his confidence. When he
intimated his intention of visiting them, according to the program of vv. 15 and 16 [2 Corinthians
1:15-16], he had felt sure of a friendly welcome, and of the cordial recognition of his apostolic
authority; it was only when that assurance was taken away from him by news of what was being
said and done at Corinth, that he had changed his plan. He had originally intended to go from
Ephesus to Corinth, then from Corinth north into Macedonia, then back to Corinth again, and
thence, with the assistance of the Corinthians, or their convoy for part of the way, to Jerusalem.
Had this purpose been carried out, he would of course have been twice in Corinth, and it is to
this that most scholars refer the words "a second benefit," or rather "grace." This reference,
indeed, is not quite certain; and it cannot be proved, though it is made more probable, by using
προτερον and δευτεραν to interpret each other. It remains possible that when Paul said, "I was
minded to come before unto you, that ye might have a second benefit," he was thinking of his
original visit as the first, and of this purposed one as the second, "grace." This reading of his
words has commended itself to scholars like Calvin, Bengel, and Heinrici. Whichever of these
interpretations be correct, the Apostle had abandoned his purpose of going from Ephesus to
Macedonia via Corinth, and had intimated in the First Epistle [1 Corinthians 16:1-24] his
intention of reaching Corinth via Macedonia. This change of purpose is not sufficient to explain
what follows. Unless there had been at Corinth a great deal of bad feeling, it would have passed
without remark, as a thing which had no doubt good reasons, though the Corinthians were
ignorant of them; at the very most, it would have called forth expressions of disappointment and
regret. They would have been sorry that the benefit ( χάρις), the token of Divine favor which was
always bestowed when the Apostle came "in the fullness of the blessing of Christ," and "longing
to impart some spiritual gift," had been delayed; but they would have acquiesced as in any other
natural disappointment. But this was not what took place. They used the Apostle’s change of
purpose to assail his character. They charged him with "lightness," with worthless levity. They
called him a weathercock, a Yes and No man, who said now one thing and now the opposite,
who said both at once and with equal emphasis, who had his own interests in view in his
fickleness, and whose word, to speak plainly, could never be depended upon.
The responsibility for the change of plan has already, in the emphatic ταύτῃ τῇ πεποιθήσει, been
indirectly transferred to his accusers; but the Apostle stoops to answer them quite
straightforwardly. His answer is indeed a challenge: "When I cherished that first wish to visit
you, was I-dare you say I was-guilty of the levity with which you charge me? Or-to enlarge the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-43-320.jpg)
![question, and, seeing that my whole character is attacked, to bring my character as a whole into
the discussion-the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there
should be the yea yea and the nay nay?" Am I, he seems to say, in my character and conduct, like
a shifty, unprincipled politician-a man who has no convictions, or no conscience about his
convictions-a man who is guided, not by any higher spirit dwelling in him, but solely by
considerations of selfish interest? Do I say things out of mere compliment, not meaning them?
When I make promises, or announce intentions, is it always with the tacit reservation that they
may be cancelled if they turn out inconvenient? Do you suppose that I purposely represent
myself ( ἴνα ᾗ παρ΄ έμοί) as a man who affirms and denies, makes promises and breaks them, has
Yes yes and No no dwelling side by side in his soul? You know me far better than to suppose
any such thing. All my communications with you have been inconsistent with such a view of my
character. As God is faithful, our word to you is not Yes and No. It is not incoherent, or
equivocal, or self-contradictory. It is entirely truthful and self-consistent.
In this eighteenth verse the Apostle’s mind is reaching out already to what he is going to make
his real defence, and ὁ λόγος ἡμῶν ("our word") therefore carries a double weight. It covers at
once whatever he had said to them about the proposed journey, and whatever he had said in his
evangelistic ministry at Corinth. It is this latter sense of it that is continued in ver. 19 [2
Corinthians 1:19]: "For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us, by me
and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not Yes and No, but in him Yes has found place. For how
many soever are the promises of God, in Him is the Yes." Let us notice first the argumentative
force of this. Paul is engaged in vindicating his character, and especially in maintaining his
truthfulness and sincerity. How does he do so here? His unspoken assumption is that character is
determined by the main interest of life; that the work to which a man gives his soul will react
upon the soul, changing it into its own likeness. As the dyer’s hand is subdued to the element it
works in, so was the whole being of Paul-such is the argument-subdued to the element in which
he wrought, conformed to it, impregnated by it. And what was that element? It was the Gospel
concerning God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Was there any dubiety about what that was? any equivocal
mixture of Yes and No there? Far from it. Paul was so certain of what it was that he repeatedly
and solemnly anathematized man or angel who should venture to qualify, let alone deny it. There
is no mixture of Yes and No in Christ. As the Apostle says elsewhere, [Romans 15:8] Jesus
Christ was a minister of the circumcision "in the interest of the truth of God, with a view to the
confirmation of the promises." However many the promises might be, in Him a mighty
affirmation, a mighty fulfillment, was given of every one. The ministry of the Gospel has this,
then, as its very subject, its constant preoccupation, its highest glory-the absolute faithfulness of
God. Who would venture to assert that Paul, or that anybody, could catch the trick of
equivocation in such a service? Who does not see that such service must needs create true men?
To this argument there is, for the natural man, a ready answer. It by no means follows, he will
say, that because the Gospel is devoid of ambiguity or inconsistency, equivocation and
insincerity must be unknown to its preachers. A man may proclaim the true Gospel and in his
other dealings be far from a true man. Experience justifies this reply; and yet it does not
invalidate Paul’s argument. That argument is good for the case in which it is applied. It might be
repeated by a hypocrite, but no hypocrite could ever have invented it. It bears, indeed, a striking
because an unintentional testimony to the height at which Paul habitually lived, and to his
unqualified identification of himself with his apostolic calling. If a man has ten interests in life,
more or less divergent, he may have as many inconsistencies in his behavior; but if he has said
with St. Paul, "This one thing I do," and if the one thing which absorbs his very soul is an](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-44-320.jpg)
![of the verbs change into the past as Paul describes three divine acts of pure vertical sovereign
grace, which God has done to all his people:-
i] “He anointed us.” God himself did this. He did not send a prophet like Samuel to do it, it was
He himself who came to Corinth of the Gentiles, right in the neighbourhood of the temple of
Artemis, and there he anointed with his Spirit us – Paul stands in solidarity with the whole
Corinthian congregation – “we have been anointed by God”, he tells them. As long promised by
the prophet Joel the anointing would be upon indiscriminate, upon daughters as well as sons,
young men and old men, mere maid-servants and man-servants – those on the lowest rungs of
the social ladder – let not one slave think his rank prevents his enjoying this privilege, Gentiles
as well as Jews, the Spirit would come upon them, and then they would all declare the wonderful
works of God. The Mosaic longing that all God’s servants would be prophets was at last
fulfilled.
Paul here is underlining the new covenant priesthood of the mere believer, the prophetic and
kingly nature of every single Christian. God has anointed us in regeneration. There is not one
single Christian who is unanointed, who is not a priest and a prophet and a king. That is the
wonderful status of the mere Christian. The apostle Peter can speak to similar Gentile strangers
and pilgrims scattered all through Asia Minor and he can say to them, “But you are a chosen
people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Pet. 2:9). That has given
us the right of access to God. We can hurry into his presence in the name of Jesus and cry “Abba
Father” to him and he will give us his undivided attention. There was a time when only the
anointed High Priest on the Day of Atonement could enter into the Holy of Holies one day a
year, but we can enter at any time and remain there with God for as long as a heart can desire,
because God has anointed us as priests in Christ.
I say that every Christian is an anointed Christian. If you heard Peter sitting at one side of the
Antioch congregation and refusing to eat with the Gentile members of the church then he was not
proving that he was unanointed but he was showing to what depths a Spirit-anointed member of
Christ’s church could fall. So none of us may take our privileges for granted – “take heed you
who stand lest you fall” – and each of us must cry to God, “Help me to stand firm in Christ.” I
will not minimize your privileges in Christ. I will take them and scourge you with them if you
are not standing firm. Every Christian has become a member of the fellowship of the Anointed –
the Messianic community, the anointed ones who are in the Great Anointed One. The is how
God makes us stand firm. He gives us Holy Spirit anointing. How wonderful his faithfulness.
ii] “He set his seal of ownership on us” (v.22). There is a document of ownership of houses and
businesses and merchandise and lands. The owner pours warm wax onto the document and puts
his own unique seal upon it. Those things are legally his, and nobody else’s. The seal is a mark
of authenticity. You are the document, and the seal is God. He has confirmed that those who
have put their trust in Christ belong to him by setting his seal upon them. “Saul of Tarsus is now
mine! The Philippian jailor is now mine! Lydia is now mine!” When God regenerates he sets his
seal of ownership on us. “These are mine,” he declares. He is not ashamed that such derelicts are
his. God is so faithful towards us.
The seal is not a spiritual experience. It is the Holy Spirit himself which is the free gift of God to
us. We have not worked for it. We have not earned it. We have not agonized until this is ours.
We have not had to prove ourselves faithful for a long time and then we have discovered that it
has been enough and God has sealed us. It has nothing to do with our bringing the sealing on
ourselves, “He set his seal of ownership on us.” It is because he is faithful and he has committed](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-61-320.jpg)
![himself to taking us as his own: “I know all about them, that those Corinthians will start bragging
in their different leaders, and start saying that there is no resurrection, and falling into sin, and
tolerating massive wickedness in the congregation, but those people in Corinth are yet mine. I
have set my seal upon them.”
Does that mean we can do what we like because we have been sealed by God? No way.
Remember what was written to the Ephesians, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom
you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephs. 4:30). You have him. You’ve been sealed by
him. Then do not grieve him.
iii] He “put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (v.22). This is
another picture from the business world. We know it today. “You want a top of the range
computer system?” The advertisement asks. “You can take it now if you pay a meagre deposit.
You do not need to pay the rest until next year. Just put down the deposit and it will be yours.”
They are not lying. You pay the deposit and that desirable item becomes legally yours.
So what do we pay God to have him? Or what down-payment do we make? That is not the
picture at all. It is not the deposit that we have scraped together in order for the desirable object
to become ours. It is rather God who has paid the deposit. From all that the world has to offer of
rich and noble and smart and beautiful people, God has looked and loved and chosen us – the
weak and despised things of the world – the nobodies. He has made us his own, and this is
another confirmation that we are indeed his. He has paid the deposit guaranteeing that we are his.
The deposit is God himself. The cost to God is God himself, sent into the hearts of sinners. It is
there that this earnest has been deposited. Do we Christians have him? Of course. What true
believer does not? If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his. The Spirit he has
given us is a further persuasion, a down-payment that means that our ownership is most certainly
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to Jesus, with all that that infers. He has
guaranteed to us that heaven is to come, and glory is to come, and likeness to Christ is to come,
and a new heavens and a new earth is to come.
“Now I belong to Jesus.
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone
But for eternity.”
What blessings now, and hope in the future. Another life of the Beatle John Lennon has been
published and extensively reviewed this week. At the end of his life Lennon lived with Yoko
Ono in a luxury apartment in New York, a home which was full of violence, drugs and gloom.
He records who he had met Paul Macartney and his wife Linda the night before – remember how
in the thiry years of their marrriage the Macartneys were apart for only one night – and Lennon
writes in his diary: “Out with Paul and Linda. Boring. All they talk about is ‘how well they are.’
Really overbearing, self-satisfied and dumb.” Then he writes a letter to his cousin Leila in
England in January 1979: “I’m 40 next year – I hope life begins – that is, I’d like a little less
trouble and more – what?” At the end of the following year he was shot dead. Imagine having all
that money, being so unhappy, not thinking that life had yet begun, but not knowing what else
there was for him to do or where to go to find the elusive abundant life.
Do you see that why Thomas Chisholm wrote, “Great is Thy faithfulness”? He had simply met
with the Jesus Christ who never baffles or perplexes. He had come to Christ and he had found
him to be faithful to all he said. He had read the promises of God in his word about the Messiah](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-62-320.jpg)
![With utmost reverence would I saythat God Himself cannot be glorified by
the promise without you. If He intends to feedthe hungry, then the hungry
are essentialto the accomplishment of His purpose. If He would clothe the
naked, then there must be nakedones for Him to clothe. Is there not a mine of
comfort here for you who have been almost without hope? I trust that some of
you poor lostones will say in your hearts, if you do not utter it with your
voices, “Are we really essentialto God’s glory? Does Godneed our poverty,
and our sinfulness, and our nothingness, in order that He may, through them,
display the greatness ofHis grace?Thenwe will certainly come to Him just as
we are.” Do so, I pray you. Come!Come!! Come!!! May the Holy Spirit, by
His omnipotent grace, draw you now, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake!Amen.
CHARLES SIMEON
THE STABILITY OF THE PROMISES
2 Corinthians 1:20. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory
of God by us.
MANKIND in general discover much versatility in their spirit and conduct. They form purposes
and rescind them according as they are influenced by carnal hopes or fears; but the Gospel
teaches us to lay our plans with wisdom, and to execute them with firmness. A light, fickle,
wavering mind, if not incompatible with, is at least unworthy of, the Christian character. St. Paul
has been accused of “lightness” for not paying his intended visit to Corinth. It is probable too (as
appears by his apology) that his enemies had thrown out insinuations against his doctrine also, as
though it could not be depended upon. He thought such charges extremely injurious to his person
and ministry: he therefore first affirms that his doctrines had been uniform, and next appeals to
God, that there had been the same uniformity in his conduct also [Note: ver. 23. He assures them
that he had delayed his journey, not from fickleness of mind, but from tenderness to them.]. In
speaking of his doctrine he digresses a little from his subject; but, what he says of the promises,
is worthy of peculiar attention. It suggests to us the following important observations:
I. All the promises of God are made to us in Christ Jesus—
God has “given to us exceeding great and precious promises”—
[He has engaged to bestow all which can conduce to our temporal welfare: all too, which can
promote our spiritual advancement. To this he has added all the glory and felicity of heaven
itself. Such are the benefits annexed by God himself to real godliness [Note: 1 Timothy 4:8.].]
But all these are given to us only in Christ Jesus—
[Man, the instant he had sinned, was exposed to the wrath of God; nor could he any longer have
a claim on the promises made to him in his state of innocence; but Christ became the head and
representative of God’s elect: with him God was pleased to enter into covenant for us [Note:
Hebrews 8:6.], and to give us a promise of eternal life in him [Note: 2 Timothy 1:1.]. Our
original election of God, our adoption into his family, with every blessing consequent upon](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-74-320.jpg)
![these, were confirmed to us in him [Note: Ephesians 1:3 to Ephesians 5:11.]: hence, in the text, it
is twice said, that the promises are in him; and, in another place, that they were made before the
existence of any human being [Note: Titus 1:2.]: even when the covenant was apparently made
with Abraham, Christ was the true seed in whom alone it was confirmed [Note: Galatians 3:16-
17.].]
From this circumstance they derive all their stability.
II. In him they are all firm and immutable—
The terms “Yea and Amen” import steadfastness and immutability. Now the promises cannot fail
unless they be either revoked by God, or forfeited by man; but God will not suffer them to fail by
either of these means—
He himself will not revoke them—
[Some of his promises are absolute and others conditional: the conditional are suspended on the
performance of something by man: the absolute are made without respect to any thing to he done
by us [Note: Such are the declarations respecting the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and
ascension of Christ, together with the consequent calling of the Gentiles, and the salvation of all
that from eternity were given to Christ. John 17:6.]. If the former fail, it is not so properly a
breach of promise, as an execution of a threatening implied in it [Note: This is the true import of
what God says, Numbers 14:34.]: the latter never have failed in any one instance; nor can one jot
or tittle of them ever fail to all eternity. This is declared in various passages of Holy Scripture
[Note: 1 Samuel 12:22. Isaiah 54:10. Jeremiah 31:35-37; Jeremiah 33:25-26.]. God’s word, like
his nature, has “no variableness or shadow of turning:” he confirmed his promises with an oath,
in order that we might he more assured of the immutability of his counsel [Note: Hebrews 6:17.]:
hence it is expressly said, that “the promise is sure to all the seed [Note: Romans 4:16.].”]
Nor will he suffer his people to forfeit their interest in them—
[Doubtless his people, as free agents, are capable of apostatizing from the truth: yea, they are
even bent to backslide from him [Note: Hosea 11:7.]; and, if left to themselves, they would
inevitably fall and perish [Note: Isaiah 10:4.]: hence they are bidden to take heed lest they come
short of the promised blessings [Note: Hebrews 4:1.]. St. Paul himself felt the need of much
labour and self-denial to prevent his becoming a cast-away [Note: 1 Corinthians 9:27.].
Nevertheless these truths are not at all inconsistent with the doctrine insisted on: it is by the fear
of falling, that God keeps us from falling [Note: Philippians 2:12-13.]; and he will keep us by his
own power unto final salvation [Note: 1 Peter 1:5.]. Of this St. Paul was as confident as of any
truth whatever [Note: Philippians 1:6.]; nor is there any other truth more abundantly confirmed
in Scripture [Note: Romans 11:29. John 10:28-29.]. God will indeed punish his people for their
declensions [Note: Psalms 89:30-32.]; but, instead of casting them off, he will reclaim them from
their errors [Note: Psalms 89:33-35.]: if it were not thus, not one only, but all of those, who had
been given to Christ, might perish. God however will effectually prevent this [Note: Matthew
18:14. Jeremiah 32:38-41.]; and the weakest of his people may join in the Apostle’s triumph
[Note: Romans 8:38-39.].]
This doctrine is far from being a matter of speculation only:
III. In their accomplishment God is glorified, and the ends of our ministry are answered—
The promises, as recorded in the Scriptures, are the foundation of our hopes: but it is by their
accomplishment alone that the effects attributed to them are produced. In that,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-75-320.jpg)
![1. God is glorified—
[Every perfection of the Deity is interested in the accomplishment of his word: the mercy and
love of God have given us the promises: his truth and faithfulness are pledged to fulfil them: his
almighty power is engaged to execute whatever his goodness has given us reason to expect.
Were his promises to fail of accomplishment, these perfections would be all dishonoured; but
when they are fulfilled, these perfections are all glorified. Justice itself is made to harmonize
with truth and mercy [Note: Psalms 85:10.], and matter is furnished for endless praise and
adoration.]
2. The ends of our ministry are answered—
[The great ends of our ministry are to convert, edify, and comfort immortal souls. In pursuance
of these, we set before men those promises which are most suited to their respective conditions;
and assure them that their affiance in those promises shall bring them the blessings they desire.
When therefore the contrite are brought to experience rest in Jesus, when the afflicted are
comforted, the backsliding reclaimed, or the wavering established, then the great ends of our
ministry are so far answered with respect to them. The truth of God in his promises is then made
to appear; the benefits contained in them are enjoyed by our fellow-creatures; and our labours
receive their richest recompence.]
Application—
[The Scripture speaks of some as “heirs of promise,” and others as “strangers from the covenant
of promise.” Let us inquire to which of these characters we belong. Have we renounced every
other hope, and rested simply on the promises made to us in Christ? And are we living in the
earnest expectation of their full accomplishment? Have we so embraced them as to shew that we
are seeking another country [Note: Hebrews 11:13-14.]? Let us not mistake our true and proper
character. If we be strangers from the covenant of promise, we are without Christ, and without
hope [Note: Ephesians 2:12.]. The threatenings, and not the promises, belong to us, and they will
infallibly be executed upon us in due season. O that we might now flee for refuge to the hope set
before us! But if we be “heirs of promise,” happy are we beyond all expression. Every promise
of God, temporal, spiritual, or eternal, is made to us. Let every one then of this description be
filled with consolation [Note: Hebrews 6:18.]: let them also be followers of those, who now
inherit the promises [Note: Hebrews 6:12.]. May it never be said of them, that they glorify God
by their faith, but dishonour him by their works! The promises are given, not merely to save, but
to sanctify, the soul [Note: 2 Peter 1:4.]. Treasure up then, brethren, those inestimable pledges of
God’s love, and let them operate according to the direction given you [Note: 2 Corinthians 7:1.].]
ROB SALVATO
THE STABILITY OF THE PROMISES
2 Corinthians 1:20. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory
of God by us.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-76-320.jpg)
![MANKIND in general discover much versatility in their spirit and conduct. They form purposes
and rescind them according as they are influenced by carnal hopes or fears; but the Gospel
teaches us to lay our plans with wisdom, and to execute them with firmness. A light, fickle,
wavering mind, if not incompatible with, is at least unworthy of, the Christian character. St. Paul
has been accused of “lightness” for not paying his intended visit to Corinth. It is probable too (as
appears by his apology) that his enemies had thrown out insinuations against his doctrine also, as
though it could not be depended upon. He thought such charges extremely injurious to his person
and ministry: he therefore first affirms that his doctrines had been uniform, and next appeals to
God, that there had been the same uniformity in his conduct also [Note: ver. 23. He assures them
that he had delayed his journey, not from fickleness of mind, but from tenderness to them.]. In
speaking of his doctrine he digresses a little from his subject; but, what he says of the promises,
is worthy of peculiar attention. It suggests to us the following important observations:
I. All the promises of God are made to us in Christ Jesus—
God has “given to us exceeding great and precious promises”—
[He has engaged to bestow all which can conduce to our temporal welfare: all too, which can
promote our spiritual advancement. To this he has added all the glory and felicity of heaven
itself. Such are the benefits annexed by God himself to real godliness [Note: 1 Timothy 4:8.].]
But all these are given to us only in Christ Jesus—
[Man, the instant he had sinned, was exposed to the wrath of God; nor could he any longer have
a claim on the promises made to him in his state of innocence; but Christ became the head and
representative of God’s elect: with him God was pleased to enter into covenant for us [Note:
Hebrews 8:6.], and to give us a promise of eternal life in him [Note: 2 Timothy 1:1.]. Our
original election of God, our adoption into his family, with every blessing consequent upon
these, were confirmed to us in him [Note: Ephesians 1:3 to Ephesians 5:11.]: hence, in the text, it
is twice said, that the promises are in him; and, in another place, that they were made before the
existence of any human being [Note: Titus 1:2.]: even when the covenant was apparently made
with Abraham, Christ was the true seed in whom alone it was confirmed [Note: Galatians 3:16-
17.].]
From this circumstance they derive all their stability.
II. In him they are all firm and immutable—
The terms “Yea and Amen” import steadfastness and immutability. Now the promises cannot fail
unless they be either revoked by God, or forfeited by man; but God will not suffer them to fail by
either of these means—
He himself will not revoke them—
[Some of his promises are absolute and others conditional: the conditional are suspended on the
performance of something by man: the absolute are made without respect to any thing to he done
by us [Note: Such are the declarations respecting the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and
ascension of Christ, together with the consequent calling of the Gentiles, and the salvation of all
that from eternity were given to Christ. John 17:6.]. If the former fail, it is not so properly a
breach of promise, as an execution of a threatening implied in it [Note: This is the true import of
what God says, Numbers 14:34.]: the latter never have failed in any one instance; nor can one jot
or tittle of them ever fail to all eternity. This is declared in various passages of Holy Scripture
[Note: 1 Samuel 12:22. Isaiah 54:10. Jeremiah 31:35-37; Jeremiah 33:25-26.]. God’s word, like](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-77-320.jpg)
![his nature, has “no variableness or shadow of turning:” he confirmed his promises with an oath,
in order that we might he more assured of the immutability of his counsel [Note: Hebrews 6:17.]:
hence it is expressly said, that “the promise is sure to all the seed [Note: Romans 4:16.].”]
Nor will he suffer his people to forfeit their interest in them—
[Doubtless his people, as free agents, are capable of apostatizing from the truth: yea, they are
even bent to backslide from him [Note: Hosea 11:7.]; and, if left to themselves, they would
inevitably fall and perish [Note: Isaiah 10:4.]: hence they are bidden to take heed lest they come
short of the promised blessings [Note: Hebrews 4:1.]. St. Paul himself felt the need of much
labour and self-denial to prevent his becoming a cast-away [Note: 1 Corinthians 9:27.].
Nevertheless these truths are not at all inconsistent with the doctrine insisted on: it is by the fear
of falling, that God keeps us from falling [Note: Philippians 2:12-13.]; and he will keep us by his
own power unto final salvation [Note: 1 Peter 1:5.]. Of this St. Paul was as confident as of any
truth whatever [Note: Philippians 1:6.]; nor is there any other truth more abundantly confirmed
in Scripture [Note: Romans 11:29. John 10:28-29.]. God will indeed punish his people for their
declensions [Note: Psalms 89:30-32.]; but, instead of casting them off, he will reclaim them from
their errors [Note: Psalms 89:33-35.]: if it were not thus, not one only, but all of those, who had
been given to Christ, might perish. God however will effectually prevent this [Note: Matthew
18:14. Jeremiah 32:38-41.]; and the weakest of his people may join in the Apostle’s triumph
[Note: Romans 8:38-39.].]
This doctrine is far from being a matter of speculation only:
III. In their accomplishment God is glorified, and the ends of our ministry are answered—
The promises, as recorded in the Scriptures, are the foundation of our hopes: but it is by their
accomplishment alone that the effects attributed to them are produced. In that,
1. God is glorified—
[Every perfection of the Deity is interested in the accomplishment of his word: the mercy and
love of God have given us the promises: his truth and faithfulness are pledged to fulfil them: his
almighty power is engaged to execute whatever his goodness has given us reason to expect.
Were his promises to fail of accomplishment, these perfections would be all dishonoured; but
when they are fulfilled, these perfections are all glorified. Justice itself is made to harmonize
with truth and mercy [Note: Psalms 85:10.], and matter is furnished for endless praise and
adoration.]
2. The ends of our ministry are answered—
[The great ends of our ministry are to convert, edify, and comfort immortal souls. In pursuance
of these, we set before men those promises which are most suited to their respective conditions;
and assure them that their affiance in those promises shall bring them the blessings they desire.
When therefore the contrite are brought to experience rest in Jesus, when the afflicted are
comforted, the backsliding reclaimed, or the wavering established, then the great ends of our
ministry are so far answered with respect to them. The truth of God in his promises is then made
to appear; the benefits contained in them are enjoyed by our fellow-creatures; and our labours
receive their richest recompence.]
Application—](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-78-320.jpg)
![[The Scripture speaks of some as “heirs of promise,” and others as “strangers from the covenant
of promise.” Let us inquire to which of these characters we belong. Have we renounced every
other hope, and rested simply on the promises made to us in Christ? And are we living in the
earnest expectation of their full accomplishment? Have we so embraced them as to shew that we
are seeking another country [Note: Hebrews 11:13-14.]? Let us not mistake our true and proper
character. If we be strangers from the covenant of promise, we are without Christ, and without
hope [Note: Ephesians 2:12.]. The threatenings, and not the promises, belong to us, and they will
infallibly be executed upon us in due season. O that we might now flee for refuge to the hope set
before us! But if we be “heirs of promise,” happy are we beyond all expression. Every promise
of God, temporal, spiritual, or eternal, is made to us. Let every one then of this description be
filled with consolation [Note: Hebrews 6:18.]: let them also be followers of those, who now
inherit the promises [Note: Hebrews 6:12.]. May it never be said of them, that they glorify God
by their faith, but dishonour him by their works! The promises are given, not merely to save, but
to sanctify, the soul [Note: 2 Peter 1:4.]. Treasure up then, brethren, those inestimable pledges of
God’s love, and let them operate according to the direction given you [Note: 2 Corinthians 7:1.].]
Believing the Promises
II Corinthians 1:20
For the next few weeks we want to look at the topic of "Believing the Promises". It is one thing
to know the promises of God, and yet another to actually believe them! We will never be all that
God wants us to be until we become 'promise believers'.
In our text this morning we find that all of God's promises answer yes in Christ; all of God's
promises are based upon and find their fulfillment in Christ. Peter uses three words to describe
the promises of God.
Note: "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might
be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."
cf 2Pe. 1:4
1. Exceeding = beyond natural limits or supernatural.
2. Great = large, surpassing all others.
3. Precious = of such great value that a suitable price is hard to estimate.
What is a promise? An oral or written agreement to do or not to do something. To give a basis
for expectation. God's promises are graciously bestowed, secured by negotiation. There are over
3000 promises for us to claim in God's Word. What we must do is learn to depend more upon
His promises to us than our promises to Him. We have all heard of 'foxhole religion'. Our
promises to God are not very valuable, but His promises to us are exceeding, great, and precious.
I. Guiding Principles for Believing the Promises of God.
A. We must understand that every- thing we do in our Christian life is based upon faith in the
promises of God.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-79-320.jpg)
![Was Paul's Heart Divided Toward the Corinthians?
l "
According to verses 15–16 Paul had made a plan to visit Corinth twice to give them a double
blessing. He was going to cross the Aegean Sea to Corinth on his way to Macedonia, and then
come back by Corinth. This was his plan, and they heard about it. But then something happened
that made him change his mind (see 1:23 ff.). Evidently the rumor starts to circulate that Paul's
heart is divided. YES, he loves them and wants to see them and bless them. But NO, maybe not
as much as he loves his own convenience or some other church. Is Paul's heart YES and NO
toward the Corinthians?
He answers passionately in verses 17–18: "Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I
make my plans like a worldly man, ready to say Yes and No at once? As surely as God is
faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No."
In other words, our planning and our preaching are not fickle; they are not double minded; they
are unified; they are YES to you. We live for your good. We are for you and not against you. Our
life and ministry is a resounding YES, YES, YES! Yes to your joy! Yes to your holiness! Yes to
your faith and hope and love and peace and power!
And then in verses 19 and 20 Paul shows why his own life is YES to the Corinthians: namely,
because God has spoken his final decisive YES to them in Christ.
(19) For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, Silvanus and
Timothy and I, was not Yes and No; but in him it is always YES. [Literally: "The
(decisive) YES has happened in him"—God's heart is not divided in Christ. Christ means
YES!] (20a) For all the promises of God find their YES in him.
So Paul is saying: My heart is not divided toward you because God's heart is not divided toward
you. If you belong to Christ by faith, then everything God could possibly give you for your good
he has signed over to your account in Christ. You hear the same answer at every point: Is this
promise in my account? Yes. Is this promise in my account? Yes. Is this blessing in my account?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All the promises of God are YES in Christ.
God's Heart Toward Those in Christ
l "
In Galatians 3:29 Paul wrote, "If you are Christ's then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs
according to promise." (See Ephesians 3:6; Galatians 3:14, 22; Hebrews 9:15; Romans 15:8.) All
the promises of God for the good of his people focus in Christ. He confirms them and secures
them and, as it were, purchases them for all who belong to him—for all who believe (Galatians
3:22). Every sinner who comes to God in Christ, with all his needs, finds God coming to him in
Christ, with all his promises. When a sinful person meets the holy God IN CHRIST, what he
hears is YES. Do you love me? YES. Will you forgive me? YES. Will you accept me? YES.
YES. Will you help me change? YES. Will you give me power to serve you? YES. Will you
keep me? YES. Will you show me your glory? YES.
All the promises of God—all the blessings of God in the heavenly places—are YES in Christ
Jesus. Jesus is God's decisive YES to all who believe.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-85-320.jpg)
![The Challenge and Connection to Prayer
l "
Now comes the great challenge and the connection between all this and prayer. Verse 20b: "That
is why [or: therefore; so] we utter the Amen though him, to the glory of God [literally: to God for
(his) glory]."
Verse 20b explains why the Christian church says "Amen." It's a word taken over into Greek
from Hebrew where it meant a very strong affirmation (Numbers 5:22; Nehemiah 5:13; 8:6)—a
formal, solemn, earnest "I agree," or "I affirm what you just said," or "This is true." Most simply
AMEN means a very earnest YES in the context of addressing God.
Now notice the connection between the two halves of verse 20. The first half says, "For all the
promises of God find their YES in him." The second half says, "That is why we utter the Amen
through him, to God for his glory." When you realize that AMEN and YES mean the same thing,
here's what the verse means: In Jesus Christ God says his YES, his AMEN, to us through his
promises; and in Christ we say our YES, our AMEN, back to God, through prayer.
Four Observations About Prayer
l "
Notice four things about prayer in verse 20.
1. Prayer Is Through Jesus
Verse 20b: "That is why we utter the AMEN through him . . . " God's YES comes to us in Christ
according to verse 20a ("All the promises of God find their YES in him.") So if God's YES
comes to us in Christ, then prayer must go to God through Christ, because nobody wants to hear
a NO. Everybody wants to hear a yes when they pray, and that is what we hear in Christ, and
nowhere else. This is what we mean when we say, "In Jesus' name," at the end of our prayers.
2. Prayer Is for God's Glory
Verse 20b: "That is why we utter the Amen though him, to God for [his] glory." Amen is the
great affirmation that God is the Giver and we are the needy. Amen affirms God's grace and
goodness and power and wisdom to respond in the very best way for his glory and for our good.
All prayer should have the glory of God as its chief aim. Amen is our YES to the glory of God.
3. Prayer Is Laying Hold onto Promises
Prayer is drawing on the account where God has deposited all his promises. Prayer is not hoping
in the dark that there might be a God of good intentions out there. Prayer goes to the bank and
draws on promises. Don't miss the connection between the two halves of the verse: "All the
promises of God find their YES in him. THAT [because of the promises!] is why we utter the
Amen through him, to God for his glory." Which leads to . . .
4. AMEN Is a Full and Precious Word in Times of Prayer
It doesn't mean primarily, "YES, I have said all this prayer." It means primarily, "YES, God has
made all these promises." AMEN means, YES, Lord, you can do it. It means, YES, Lord, you are
powerful. YES, Lord, you are wise. YES, Lord, you are merciful. AMEN is like an exclamation](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-86-320.jpg)
![(3) The same tone of unwavering certitude is audible in His teaching about duty and God. Others
have taught with a wonderful confidence, but it has always been avowedly a derived and
imparted message. Gabriel spoke to Muhammad. The spot is shown where Gautama, after
agonies of search, became Buddha, which means, “the enlightened one.” Even the prophets of
the true faith were men “to whom the word of the Lord came,” a position which Christ contrasted
with His own. But if men had known Him they should have known the Father. “The Father
sheweth him all things that himself doeth.” “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither
knoweth any the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.”
(4) In quite the same confident tones Jesus spoke of the life to come; “In my Father’s house are
many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you”; “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast
given me, be with me where I am.”
Review the whole circle of spiritual truth, and see whether there is any part of it where Jesus trod
with hesitating step. Find one conjecture, one mere inference, one example of truth arrived at
otherwise than as a fact within His own consciousness. He used Scripture to repel Satan, to refute
gainsayers, to convince the hesitating; and, as in His last words upon the cross, to express the
deepest emotions of His own heart. But His natural and characteristic method, with all teachable
souls, is as He expressed it to Nicodemus: “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have
seen.”
This certainty of Christ’s is part of the completeness of His character and life. And hence it
becomes part of that assurance we have when we put our trust in Him.
The character and doctrine of Jesus are the sun that holds all the minor orbs of revelation to their
places, and pours a sovereign self-evidencing light into all religious knowledge. It is no
ingenious fetches of argument that we want; no external testimony, gathered here and there from
the records of past ages, suffices to end our doubts; but it is the new sense opened in us by Jesus
Himself—a sense deeper than words and more immediate than inference—of the miraculous
grandeur of His life; a glorious agreement felt between His works and His person, such that His
miracles themselves are proved to us in our feeling, believed in by that inward testimony. On this
inward testimony we are willing to stake everything, even the life that now is, and that which is
to come. If the miracles, if revelation itself, cannot stand upon the superhuman character of
Jesus, then let it fall. If that character does not contain all truth and centralize all truth in itself,
then let there be no truth.1 [Note: Horace Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural.]
Let me forget all else that I have known—
All else that I have heard;
Let me remember Thee, and Thee alone,
O Jesus—living Word!
It is enough to know that I am Thine—](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-98-320.jpg)
![That Thou dost undertake
To hold and keep this helpless life of mine—
Accepted for Thy sake.
O, Thou alone canst hope or help afford;
There is no way beside.
I look to Thee, my glorious risen Lord,
And I am satisfied.1 [Note: Edith H. Divall, A Believer’s Rest, 30.]
2. The promises of God are certain in Christ.—This is the special assertion of St. Paul in the text.
And these promises, we may say at once, have their certainty of fulfilment in Christ because He
has fulfilled the conditions on which they are suspended. “The wages of sin is death.” “Without
shedding of blood is no remission.” So say the Scriptures; so says the conscience of man in a
hundred lands. The promises of pardon for sin are many and rich; but they are all based on the
fact that Christ voluntarily took our place under the Law and paid the penalty our disobedience
incurred. Behind the promises are the cross and the real sacrifice it bore. That that sacrifice of
Himself was accepted of God in our behalf is put beyond denial by His resurrection from the
dead. Anyone can write a promise of pardon; many wise men have taught moral truth; and some
good men have died in pity and in love for their fellow-men. There were three crosses on
Calvary that day. Why do we lean with all religious hope on the central cross? Because Christ in
His teaching, in His works of mercy, in giving Himself to die for us, based the acceptance by
God of what He did in our behalf on His resurrection on the third day. Other men were wise;
loved their fellow-men with a passion of love and died for them; but of such only Christ was
raised from the dead at the time foretold. The opening of the grave and the raising of the dead is
the sole prerogative of God. That resurrection is God’s endorsement and acceptance of Christ’s
sacrifice as atonement for man’s sin. The promises of the needed grace for the passing day are
based on the fact that after His resurrection Christ ascended into heaven and is there making
continual intercession for us. These promises put us in touch with a living Saviour. The promises
of future glory on which we depend are based on the fact that Christ has entered into that glory
and is there now preparing a place for us, to return again to take us to Himself, that where He is
we may be also. There, then, is the security behind these promises—the person and the work of
Christ, His life, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension, by virtue of which the promises
are Yea.
(1) The promise of the love of God is secured in Christ. All too often we forget the riches of this
truth; we lose sight of the Father’s love. Perhaps in sincere anxiety not to forget that Christ is
God, we think it a dim and distant truth when we hear that the Father Almighty loved, and loves,
His Son and the sinner and the world. But here again the Bible tells a different story. It shows us
the love of God the Father as the very source of our salvation in Christ Jesus. “This is my
beloved Son; hear ye him”; “He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all”; “the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-99-320.jpg)
![Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me”; “through him we have access unto the
Father”; “the Father, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively
hope.” To know the Father—through our Lord Jesus Christ, never apart from Him, but through
and in Him,—is the glorious privilege of those who have life through grace. “This is life eternal,
that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
The question may arise in some minds, Is there any need for proving God’s love? The question
never arose except within the limits of Christianity. It is only men who have lived all their lives
in an atmosphere saturated by Christian sentiment and conviction that ever come to the point of
saying, “We do not want historical revelation to prove to us the fact of a loving God.” They
would never have fancied that they did not need the revelation unless, unconsciously to
themselves, and indirectly, all their thoughts had been coloured and illuminated by the revelation
that they professed to reject. God as Love is “our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt,” and the
only way to make absolutely certain of the fact that His heart is full of mercy to us is to look
upon Him as He stands revealed to us, not merely in the words of Christ—for, precious as they
are, these are the smallest part of His revelation—but in the life and in the death, which open for
us the heart of God. Remember what He said Himself—not “He that hath listened to me doth
understand the Father,” but “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “In him is the yea.” And
the hopes and shadowy fore-revelations of the loving heart of God are confirmed by the fact of
His life and death. “God establisheth (not “commendeth,” as our translation has it,) his love
toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
At Derby Haven in the sweet Manx land
A little girl had written on the sand
This legend—“God is love.” But, when I said—
“What means this writing?” thus she answered—
“It’s father that’s at ‘say,’
And I come here to pray,
And … God is love.” My eyes grew dim—
Blest child! in Heaven above
Your angel sees the face of Him
Whose name is love.1 [Note: T. E. Brown, Old John and Other Poems, 190.]
(2) The providence of God becomes a fact in Christ. We find within us an instinct which impels
us to cry for some heavenly help or guidance or support in times of crisis and distress. Even the
most sceptical will often give a practical denial to their doubts by the word of prayer which is
wrung from their hearts under stress of some calamity, or under the shadow of an impending](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-100-320.jpg)
![danger. In our heart of hearts, that is to say, we feel that God personally cares and provides for
this world which He has made; deep down in our being we believe that to pray is to touch the
heart of the Eternal; and in moments of anguish or of supreme joy we confide in an unseen
Providence as we would in our closest friend. And then comes the cold analysis of reason, and—
Doubts will rise if God hath kept
His promises to men.
What does it all amount to? we say. Instinct?—a delusion. Providence?—a fiction of the
imagination. Think of it. What do I, as an individual, count for in a world so vast, itself but a
speck in an illimitable universe? How should God—if there be a God—have any personal care
for me? It is the old question of the Psalmist: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the
Son of man, that thou visitest him?”
The most casual glance at the life and character of Jesus will give us the answer. He saw the
providence of God in the wayside flower, in the feeding of the birds, in the fall of a sparrow; “the
very hairs of your head are all numbered”; He who clothes the grass of the field will much more
provide for the needs of the children of men. Because He was thus conscious of God in the
things about Him, Jesus was calm and free from care in the midst of an angry and a striving
world. In the march of events and the sure progress of the ages, He recognized the all-controlling
will of God, and so He lived and died that the Father’s will might be accomplished. And then at
the end, with a joy which all the cruelties of men could not suppress, He yielded Himself to the
loving Providence which sent Him forth. “Father,” He said, “into thy hands I commend my
spirit.”
“I cannot see, I cannot speak, I cannot hear, God bless you,” was Newman’s message to his old
friend Mr. Gladstone in November, 1888. Newman’s delight in men, in books, and in affairs had
all his life been intense, and he had a strong desire that his life might be prolonged to its utmost
possible span, if it was the will of God. “For myself, now, at the end of a long life,” he wrote, “I
say from a full heart that God has never failed me, has never disappointed me, has ever turned
evil into good for me. When I was young I used to say (and I trust it was not presumptuous to say
it) that our Lord ever answered my prayers.”1 [Note: Alexander Whyte, Newman: An
Appreciation, 61.]
(3) Pardon is made sure in Christ. Every man of deep heart-experience has felt the necessity of
having a clear certainty and knowledge about forgiveness. Men do not feel it always. A man can
skate over the surface of the great deeps that lie beneath the most frivolous life, and may
suppose, in his superficial way of looking at things, that there is no need for any definite teaching
about sin, and the mode of dealing with it. But once bring that man face to face, in a quiet hour,
with the facts of his life and of a Divine law, and all that superficial ignoring of evil in Himself,
and of the dread of punishment and consequences, passes away. Then the only message that
answers to the needs of an awakened conscience and an alarmed heart is the old-fashioned
message that Jesus Christ the Righteous has died for us sinful men. All other religions have felt
after a clear doctrine of forgiveness, and all have failed to find it. Here is the Divine “Yea!” And
on it alone we can suspend the whole weight of our soul’s salvation. The rope that is to haul us](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-101-320.jpg)
![out of the horrible pit and the miry clay had much need to be tested before we commit ourselves
to it. There are many easy-going superficial theories about forgiveness predominant in the world
to-day. Except the one that says, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the
forgiveness of sin,” they are all like the rope let down into the dark mine to lift the captives
beneath, half of the strands of which have been cut on the sharp edge above, and when the
weight hangs to it, it will snap. There is nothing on which a man who has once learned the tragic
meaning and awful reality and depth of the fact of transgression can suspend his forgiveness,
except this, that “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might
bring us to God.” In Him the promise is Yea.
All human religions are founded on the principle that man must do something, or feel something,
or believe something, in order to make God love him and forgive him; whereas God’s religion
just contains a declaration that nothing of the kind is necessary on our part in order to make God
forgive us, for that He hath déjà, already, loved us and forgiven us, and given us His Son, and in
Him all things. He hath declared this to the whole race without any exception, as a truth to each
individual; so that the difference between the most miserable hater of God and the happiest child
of God does not consist in this, that God loves the one and does not love the other; but in this,
that the one knows God’s love to himself and the other does not. It is the same difference as there
is between two men standing with their faces to the sun, the one with his eyes shut and the other
with his eyes open.1 [Note: Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, i. 161.]
(4) The promise of holiness is ours in Christ. Here the promise, in many a varying form, is
magnificently full. “These things write I unto you that ye sin not”; “Whosoever abideth in him
sinneth not”; “Let not sin reign in your mortal body”; “As he which hath called you is holy, so be
ye holy in all manner of conversation.” How can all this possibly be? It is impossible except in
Him. The secret is not it, but He. “Christ is made unto us sanctification”; “Ye are filled full in
him”; “that Christ may dwell in your hearts, by faith”; that ye may “know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge.”
It is a magnificent truth that having come to Christ you are not merely near Him, but in Him; and
in Him you have at once nothing short of Christ and all His treasures. But do not make a false
use of the glorious fact. Remember that you may “have and not have.” You may receive a
property and not enjoy it. You may inherit wealth and not use it. To grasp the great promises of
what God can do for you, as well as the mighty encouragement of what He has done for you, is
the way to “possess the possessions” and to realize the wealth. You have long rested, my friend
in Christ, on the facts, the certainties, of His finished work. But have you made use enough of
His never finished working? Our Christ is eternally fixed and unchanging, in His atoning merit.
But He, the same Christ, is prepared immortally to grow in us, in His blessed indwelling by the
Holy Spirit. Yes, the “exceeding precious promises” point us to Christ dwelling in the heart by
faith, to Christ our very life, to Christ in whom we are already “enriched in everything.” Go on
and use your riches, full of hope. For while your discouragements are all behind you, the great
and precious promises are all in front. “Forget the things that are behind,” and step forth forward
upon “the things that are before”; not upon your resolves, experiences, achievements, but on the
Lord in His “precious promises.” Relying upon His promises you enter into the liberty that
belongs to the children of God.1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, All in Christ, 40.]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-102-320.jpg)
![A morning-glory bud, entangled fast
Amid the meshes of its winding stem,
Strove vainly with the coils about it cast,
Until the gardener came and loosened them.
A suffering human life entangled lay
Among the tightening coils of its own past;
The Gardener came, the fetters fell away,
The life unfolded to the sun at last.2 [Note: Willis Boyd Allen.]
(5) And the promise of the future is made sure in Him. Apart from Him the future is cloud and
darkness, for a verbal revelation is not enough. We have enough of arguments; what we want is
facts. We have enough of man’s peradventures about a future life, enough of evidence more or
less valid to show that it is “probable,” or “not inconceivable,” or “more likely than not,” and so
on and so on. What we want is that somebody shall cross the gulf and come back again. And so
we get in the Resurrection of Christ the one fact on which men may safely rest their convictions
of immortality.
Death was above all to such as St. Paul a meeting with Jesus Christ, who was the object of his
ceaseless faith, the hope of his longing heart. This man did not speculate about heaven—where it
was, what it was. Nor did he imagine its glory as became a mystic like St. John. For him heaven
was another name for Christ, the sum of all goodness, the revelation of all perfection. Between
him and Christ there had been a long friendship, with many love-passages, which had grown
more intimate every year, but had never been completed. St. Paul had heard Christ’s voice on the
road to Damascus; he had seen Him in visions; for brief moments he had visited the third
heavens; but face to face this great Christian may not have seen his Master as had St. Peter and
St. John. For an unseen Lord he lived, laboured, suffered as none else has ever done. What
wonder that St. Paul hungered and thirsted for the day when that dark servitor death would usher
him into the unveiled Presence.
That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,
Becomes my universe that feels and knows.1 [Note: J. Watson, The Potter’s Wheel, 161.]
3. All the promises of God, says the Apostle. He thinks of the sum-total of human blessedness,
“all the promises of God.” Man has forfeited them; the conditions have not been kept; and yet the
gift has been bestowed. Not even our unworthiness, so often proved, has frustrated the steadfast
purpose of the grace of God. This also, this greatest example in the universe of an unshaken](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-103-320.jpg)
![purpose, has come to us through Christ. He is, for humanity, the embodiment of the faithfulness
of God. And in Him they are all certified, for He who delivered Him up, how shall He not freely
give us all things? In Him is the Yea.
I remember an aged minister used to say, that the most learned and knowing Christians, when
they come to die, have only the same plain promises for their support as the common and
unlearned; and so I find it in my old age. It is the plain promises of the gospel that are my
support; and I bless God they are plain promises, which do not require much labour and pains to
understand them; for I can do nothing now but look into my Bible for some promise to support
me, and live upon that.1 [Note: J. Watts.]
As I was coming to you to-day, my path led me by a tasteful enclosure, into which I was bold
enough to enter. It was a vinery, not like those of the open field, so common in Palestine, France
and Germany, but a spacious and elegant conservatory. A succession of thriving stems, twisted
in form, but vigorously climbing the glass wall of the structure, at once met my eye. The long
arms of the plants, with their delicate tendrils, were carefully trained along the under side of the
crystal roof. The branches were covered with fresh green leaves, through whose fine tissues the
sunlight agreeably passed. But what delighted me most was the rare assortment of green and
purple clusters that hung above me, like inverted cones or pyramids, from amid the foliage. Their
luscious beauty quite arrested me. As I stood admiring, the proprietor of the conservatory, with
whom I had the happiness of being a little acquainted, came in. Observing my looks he kindly
asked me if I would have a cluster, and at once he proceeded to cut down a bunch for me. The
grapes were very sweet. Then, noticing that I still continued my gaze, he said, “Perhaps you
would wish to take a few clusters home with you?” To this I replied, that I was at the time on my
way to a company of friends, whose lips were no doubt as parched as my own had been, and that
I was sure there were some among them who would be as much delighted with a cluster as
myself. On which he stepped aside, and, having brought out a commodious and suitable basket,
he inlaid it with vine leaves. He then cut down some of the finer clusters, and, placing these
carefully on the leaves, he took the basket aside, and while his back was towards me, shut down
the cover, so as to secure the delicious but fragile contents from injury. Coming forward with a
pleasant smile, he handed me the basket saying, “Take this; it contains a few bunches. Share
them among your friends, and give a cluster to any one whom you find prepared to receive it.”
And here I am, with the basket in my hand! Let me set it down and raise the cover, so neatly
fastened, and, before proceeding further, hand some of the clusters to you on this thirsty
afternoon. Be assured, it will afford me as much pleasure to distribute them as it will give you to
receive them. Such is my parable, for parable it is—perhaps to the disappointment of some of the
younger of my auditory. The beautiful clusters I have spoken of represent the Promises of God,
those exceeding great and precious promises, in which the blessings of the everlasting covenant
are stored up, and by which we are said to become “partakers of the divine nature.” Now let me
open the basket, and take out one of its delicate specimens. Ah, here is a beauty! We must handle
it softly. See how symmetrical in shape, how perfect in form, is each grape! The fruit seems as if
it would melt on the lips. What are the terms of this promise? Listen!
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee:
Be not dismayed; for I am thy God:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-104-320.jpg)
![I will strengthen thee;
Yea, I will help thee;
Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”1 [Note: A. N. Somerville,
Precious Seed, 233.]
(1) No doubt, when the Apostle, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, spoke of the promises of God, the
first thought that would arise in his mind would be the promises to the people of Israel: the
promises of dominion and supremacy; the brilliant pictures of the Prophets; the glories
foreshadowed in the lives of David and Solomon; the majesty and excellence implied in the very
fact that they were the people of God’s choice. And if this thought passed, as of course it must
have passed, beyond the limits of Israel after the flesh, still the promises would be the same, only
in a spiritual form: the glory of the new Israel, the new Jerusalem, the new Law, the new
Covenant; promises made under a figure but holding good in their essence even when the figure
exists no longer.
(2) Such, perhaps, would hardly be the first thought suggested to one of us by the promises of
God; and, indeed, would not be the last or the crowning thought in the mind of the Apostle of the
Gentiles. Far deeper and older than these are the promises which God has written with His own
finger, not on tables of stone, but on the fleshy tables of the heart of man. These promises, the
earliest of all God’s revelations, made to mankind before even the oldest book in the Bible was
written; these promises which the loving heart finds repeated in every page of the Bible; these
promises which the Bible often reveals to us in so strange a way, making us quite unable to tell
whether the word within or the word without, whether the yearnings of conscience or the oracles
of the Scripture, first pronounced them in our spiritual ears; these are above all the promises
which Christ came to ratify and fulfil. Deep down in the heart of man there speaks a voice which
calls us to God, and promises to take us to Him. And in former days, no doubt, when it spoke to
those who had no revelation to interpret or confirm its sayings, what it said must have been often
strange, inarticulate, even unintelligible. In dumb instincts rather than in plain commands, in
voiceless longings, in yearnings for something unearthly, in strange doubts and questions did it
often speak to men who had no other teaching. And even now, to those who have the Bible in
their hands, but are still unawakened, or only half awakened, the voices that call from the deep
abysses of the soul are faint and strange, and hard to understand, and often seem hopelessly
impossible to obey. The Bible is, as it were, the grammar and the dictionary of this spiritual
language, and teaches us to interpret its accents into duties and prayers and hopes and battle and
assurance of victory. But even when we have the Bible, how much study we need before we can
fathom the depths of spiritual meaning contained in the everlasting promises which God’s finger
has written on the soul of man. Men still unawakened, or only half awakened, could not, even
with the Bible in their hands, always translate the language of the spirit that speaks within them.
But even the awakened, in our human sense of the word awakened, what can they do but see in a
glass darkly the dim reflection of the truth of God? Yet what they see is the never-dying truth,
and that truth received its final seal in the life of Christ.
This, Edwin Markham, the spiritually-minded, has put for us in his rhapsody on “The Desire of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-105-320.jpg)
![All Nations,” where he sees that in Christ is the one positive figure that fulfils the highest
prophecies and sublimest promises that were cherished in the hearts of the world’s great nations
from the most ancient days; for in Him God had answered Yea to all the desires of the people of
the whole world.
And when He comes into the world gone wrong,
He will rebuild her beauty with a song.
To every heart He will its own dream be:
One moon has many phantoms in the sea.
Out of the North the horns will cry to men:
“Balder the Beautiful has come again!”
The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead:
“Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!”
The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice:
“Osiris comes; O tribes of Time rejoice!”
And social architects who build the State,
Serving the dream at citadel and gate,
Will hail Him coming through the labour hum.
And glad quick cries will go from man to man:
Lo, He has come, our Christ the Artisan—
The King who loved the lilies, He has come!
Lord, the Apostle dissuadeth the Hebrews from covetousness, with this argument, because God
said, I will not leave thee nor forsake thee. Yet I find not that God ever gave this promise to all
the Jews, but he spake it only to Joshua when first made commander against the Canaanites;
which, without violence to the analogy of faith, the Apostle applied to all good men in general. Is
it so that we are heirs apparent to all promises made to thy servants in Scripture? Are the charters
of grace granted to them good to me? Then will I say with Jacob, I have enough. But because I
cannot entitle myself to thy promises to them, except I imitate their piety to thee; grant I may
take as much care in following the one, as comfort in the other.1 [Note: Thomas Fuller, Good
Thoughts in Bad Times.]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-106-320.jpg)
![II
Our Amen
“Through him is the Amen.”
Therefore, through Him is the great Amen of the Universal Church, attesting and acclaiming His
fidelity by psalms and anthems, by every act of living faith, by the labours of time, by the
triumphs of countless death-beds, where death has been without a sting, and by the songs of
those within the veil.
1. Now there should be some kind of correspondence between the firmness with which we grasp,
the tenacity with which we hold, the assurance with which we believe, these great truths, and the
rocklike firmness and immovableness of the evidence upon which they rest. It is a poor
compliment to God to come to His most veracious affirmations, sealed with the broad seal of His
Son’s life and death, and to answer with a hesitating “Amen,” that falters and almost sticks in our
throat. Build rock upon rock. Be certain of the certain things. Grasp with a firm hand the firm
stay. Immovably cling to the immovable foundation; and though you be but like the limpet on
the rock hold fast by the Rock, as the limpet does; for it is an insult to the certainty of the
revelation, where there is hesitation in the believer.
The sensitive paper, which records the hours of sunshine in a day, has great gaps upon its line of
light answering to the times when clouds have obscured the sun; and the communication of
blessings from God is intermittent, if there be intermittency of faith.1 [Note: A. Maclaren, The
Wearied Christ.]
In happy ease I cried: “O sweetest Dusk
That ever pressed a kiss on weary eyes!
Bless now mine ears with murmur of thy name
And noble origin.” Then answered he:
“My father’s name was Night; from the embrace
Of Life and Death he sprang, and wed with Rest;
I am their offspring Promise, and whene’er
I meet with Faith, then is Fulfilment born.”2 [Note: A. Bunston, The Porch of Paradise, 12.]
2. Our Amen is through Him. He is the Door. The truths which He confirms are so inextricably
intertwined with Himself that we cannot get them and put away Him. Christ’s relation to Christ’s
gospel is not the relation of other teachers to their words. We may accept the words of a Plato,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-107-320.jpg)
![whatever we think of the Plato who spoke the words. But we cannot separate Christ and His
teaching in that fashion, and we must have Him if you are to get it. So faith in Him, the
intellectual acceptance of Him, as the authoritative and infallible Revealer, the bowing down of
heart and will to Him as our Commander and our Lord, the absolute trust in Him as the
foundation of all our hope and the source of all our blessedness—that is the way to certitude.
And there is no other road that we can take.
Not long ago, in Further India, an aged Christian convert, a man of eighty years, a surviving
disciple of Adoniram Judson, was found dying, by a missionary visitor. His once strong mind
was shaken by age and weakness; his thoughts failed and wandered; but when they were pointed
to Christ, they settled and were clear again. When asked about his own faith in his Redeemer, his
answer was strong in its simplicity: “I have hold of Him with both my hands.”1 [Note: H. C. G.
Moule, Christ is All, 106.]
3. If we thus keep near Him our faith will bring us the present experience and fulfilment of the
promises, and we shall be sure of them, because we have them already. And whilst men are
asking, “Do we know anything about God? Is there a God at all? Is there such a thing as
forgiveness? Can anybody find anywhere absolute rules for his life? Is there anything beyond the
grave but mist and darkness?” we can say, “One thing I know, Jesus Christ is my Saviour, and in
Him I know God, and pardon and duty and sanctifying and safety and immortality; and whatever
is dark, this, at least, is sun-clear. Get high enough up and you will be above the fog; and while
the men down in it are squabbling as to whether there is anything outside the mist, you, from
your sunny station, will see the far-off coasts, and haply catch some whiff of perfume from their
shore, and see some glinting of a glory upon the shining turrets of “the city that hath
foundations.”
Bunyan’s stepping-stones are Scripture promises. There are other stepping-stones. Tennyson
speaks of making “stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things,” and many a man,
learning self-respect through failure, has blessed God for these. Again, there are yet other
stepping-stones. There is a certain valley in the North where a rude path, hardly distinguishable
at the best of times, leads through dangerous moss-hags, right across the centre of a morass. In
rainy weather the track would be wholly obliterated but for the little foot-prints of a band of
children who go to school that way. Many a traveller has found his path safely through the
Slough of Despond by following in the children’s footsteps. But after all there are no such
stepping-stones as God’s promises. A white boulder is a poor enough object until you see it
shining in a morass; then it means life and safety. So the promises of God, that have often
seemed but wayside facts of no particular interest, shine suddenly with the very light of salvation
when we see them in the Slough of Despond.2 [Note: John Kelman, The Road, i. 21.]
The Yea and the Amen](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/jesuswasgodsyes-200207144419/85/Jesus-was-god-s-yes-108-320.jpg)
Uploaded byGLENN PEASE
Jesus was god's yes
The document discusses the steadfastness of Jesus Christ as God's ultimate affirmation, emphasizing the need for a firm and clear Gospel message amidst a culture marked by uncertainty and speculation. It highlights the apostle Paul's unwavering testimony to Christ, asserting that true preaching requires absolute certainty about Jesus as the Son of God. Furthermore, it addresses the significance of conscience, sincerity, and the necessity of divine assurance in the Christian faith, contrasting it with the ambiguities present in other belief systems.
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Jesus was god's yes
- 1. JESUS WAS GOD'SYES EDITED BY GLENN PEASE 2 Corinthians1:18-20 18 But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No." 19 Forthe Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us-by me and Silas and Timothy-was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." 20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. BIBLEHUB RESOURCES Pulpit Commentary Homiletics Christ Is "yea." 2 Corinthians 1:19 D. Fraser The apostle defended himself against imputations of levity and self-contradiction. He did not lightly form or change his plans. He did not bandy about "yea and nay." The serious theme of his ministry was some security for its grave and consistent treatment. At the present day one hears a good many complaints of vagueness and vacillation in the pulpit. Preachers are said to use ambiguous phrases, propound shifting opinions, and leave their hearers unsettled and perplexed. They seem to have no certainty in their own minds, and therefore cannot convey a sure and straightforward gospel to others. Their word is "yea and nay." Now, there may be reason for hesitancy on some topics of religion. It may be a great deal wiser than absolute assertion. But as to the main theme of gospel preaching there should be perfect certainty; for the very essence of it is the setting forth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the True One, and ought to be proclaimed with firmness, consistency, and "much assurance." The Greeks were fond of speculation. At Athens they inquired after some new thing. At Corinth they were fickle and disputatious. On such a people the calm certainty of St. Paul's preaching must have fallen with
- 2. surprise. It wastestified that Jesus, who had taught in Judaea, but never even visited Greece, and who had been crucified at Jerusalem, was the Son of God; that he had ascended to heaven, and would judge the world on an appointed day. This was not submitted to the critical acumen of the Greeks for their examination and approval. It was delivered as truth, and not as a lie - yea, and not nay. Jesus, the Son of God, was the grand Reality in a world of delusions, and the grand Essence in a world of shadows. Such had been the teaching of St. Peter and the other apostles at Jerusalem, of Philip at Samaria, and of the Cypriote and Cyrenian brethren who first delivered the testimony at Antioch. No one was more clear or more intent upon this than St. Paul. Though his powerful mind could easily have dealt with many questions that would have interested the Greeks, he resolved to adhere to the simple testimony to Jesus, the Son of the living God. It may be said that, though this was right and needful in the world which St. Paul looked upon, and is right and needful still among Jews and heathens, it is not necessary in Christian countries. But alas! it is necessary. Countries called Christian are still very ignorant of Christ; all of them need full, definite, and firm preaching of the Son of God. There is nothing like it for delivering men from their sins, and drawing them away alike from the arid sands of unbelief and from the marshy places of superstition. But the testimony must be delivered with unfaltering heart and voice; for it is the preaching of the Yea, the Faithful and True - a pillar that cannot be shaken, a foundation that cannot be moved. Heathenism was full of contradiction, incoherence, and contrast. Its gods conflicted with each other and its oracles were uncertain. It was and still is a thing of "yea and nay." Buddhism, in some respects an improvement on the heathenism which it supplanted, after all amounts to a mere dreary nihilism. One who had studied it carefully (Sir J. Emerson Tennant) said of Buddhism that, "insufficient for time and rejecting eternity, the utmost triumph of this religion is to live without fear and to die without hope." This is not "yea," not even "yea and nay," but a perpetual dismal "nay." In Christendom, too, something like it appears. There is a weary scepticism which a famous writer described as "the everlasting No." Partly it is a shallow fashion, partly it is a real plague and misery of the generation to have "nay' only in regard to the unseen. God is not. The Bible is not. The devil is not. Heaven is a dream. Hell is a fable. Prayer is useless. Faith is a fond fancy. So the mist wraps men in its chilly fold. Against all this we place the everlasting Yea. Jesus Christ is God's mighty and loving Yes to the children of men. And whatever the differences among our religious communities, in this testimony all are at one. The Son of God is he who can give light to the darkened mind, rest to the weary spirit, warmth to the frozen heart. In him desire is satisfied, apparent contradictions are reconciled, or hope is given of solutions by and by, for which we can well afford to wait. Some contrast the Christian faith unfavourably with the physical sciences. They say that it is full of mysticism and loose conjecture, whereas the sciences proceed by rigorous induction of facts observed, collated, and scrutinized. In the former we are asked to walk on air; in the latter, every step we take is on sure and solid ground. This we totally deny. There is no fair and proper test of historical and moral truth to which our holy religion refuses to be subjected. We have the well-authenticated records spoken and written by those who saw and heard Jesus Christ. We have the best reasons for trusting their testimony; and in the words, and works, and character, and suffering of Jesus, in his reappearance after death, and in the whole influence which he has exerted over millions of men for nearly nineteen centuries, we have overwhelming proof that, while human, he is superhuman - he is the Son of God. It is science that has to change its voice, not religion. It has to modify its assertions, correct its conclusions, and reconsider its theories; but Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever;" and the gospel which proclaims him brings to us the Divine "yes" to which we have only to respond with the human "yes" of an unwavering faith.
- 3. The Saviour asks,"Believest thou that I am able to do this?" Be ready with the answer, "Yea, Lord.' - F. Biblical Illustrator For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience. 2 Corinthians 1:12 The joy of a clear conscience N. Emmons, D. D.I. WHEN CHRISTIANS HAVE THE TESTIMONY OF CONSCIENCEIN THEIR FAVOUR. When it testifies — 1. That they have done what is right. 2. That they have done right from right motives. II. THAT THIS TESTIMONY OF CONSCIENCEIN THEIR FAVOUR AFFORDS THEM GOOD GROUND TO REJOICE. Because it assures them — 1. That they have internally, as well as externally, obeyed God. 2. That they have the approbation of God. 3. That they will sooner or later meet the approbation of all the world. 4. That they stand entitled to all the blessings of eternal life. III. IMPROVEMENT. If Christians have the testimony of their conscience in their favour, then — 1. They may always know their gracious state. 2. They may always know their duty. 3. They live the happiest life of any men in the world. 4. They never need to be afraid to do their duty. 5. It as faithfully testifies against all their shortcomings and moral imperfections. 6. We may discover the great source of self deception in sinners. (N. Emmons, D. D.) The testimony of conscience J. Vaughan, M. A.I. CONSCIENCE IS, PERHAPS, THE GREATEST POWER IN THE WORLD. it is an inward knowledge, which speaks either for or against the person in whom it resides. It witnesses not only to outward things, but also to inner ones; not only to our words and
- 4. actions, but toour motives, thoughts, and feelings. Hence its immense power either to comfort or to distress. II. EVERY ONE WILL BE JUDGED ACCORDING TO HIS CONSCIENCE. III. HOW IS THE CONSCIENCETO RE TRAINED? 1. Pray that it may be a right one in everything, and expect it in answer to your prayers. 2. Square it with the Bible. 3. Honour it; never trifle with it in the smallest thing. 4. Disobey whatever is against it, however pleasant, advantageous and popular. 5. Do not be afraid to take its comfort when it tells you that you are right. IV. HERE THEN ARE THE TWO QUESTIONS FOR OURSELVES, the two lines which conscience should take. 1. In worldly things, in all my dealings with my fellow-creatures, in my ways of spending my time, my expenses, amusements, family, servants, employers, etc. What must conscience say? Has it all been with a single eye? Has it been "in simplicity and godly sincerity"? 2. And in more decidedly religious points, what does conscience say? Have I been true to my Church, to my conscience, to my God? Have I loved God's house? Is any one the better because I am a Christian?(1) A condemning conscience is a dark shade thrown over the life. How will my conscience condemn me on a dying bed?(2) But there is something worse than a condemning conscience — a silent conscience. It is God going away!(3) But for a condemning or a silent conscience there is a remedy. A conscience sprinkled with the blood of Christ. (J. Vaughan, M. A.) The testimony of conscience F. W. Robertson, M. A.By this Paul does not mean faultlessness. "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves." He is not speaking of personal character but of ministry; and again not of the blamelessness of his ministry, but of its success. He had been straightforward in his ministry, and his worst enemies could be refuted if they said that he was insincere. Now this sincerity excluded — I. SUBTLE MANOEUVRING, ALL INDIRECT MODES OF TEACHING. II. ALL TEACHING UPON THE GROUND OF MERE AUTHORITY. Conclusion: This was the secret of the apostle's wondrous power. It was because he had used no craft, nor any threat of authority, but stood simply on the truth, evident like the sunlight to all who had eyes to see, that thousands, go where he would, "acknowledged" what he taught, (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) Conscience and the inner life of man D. Thomas, D. D.I. WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE SOUL CONSCIENCE OBSERVES. This is implied in its testimony. II. WHATEVER IS GOOD IN THE SOUL CONSCIENCEAPPROVES. III. WHATEVER IS JOYOUS IN THE SOUL CONSCIENCE OCCASIONS. "Our rejoicing is this."
- 5. (D. Thomas, D.D.) In simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God Christian simplicity Archdeacon Clagett.I. THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY AND OF FLESHLY WISDOM. 1. Christian simplicity. There are six things which we are to take for certain marks of it. (1)Veracity in our speech. (2)Honesty in our actions. (3)Purity in our intentions. (4)Uniformity of righteousness in our whole conversation, (5)Constancy in that way of universal righteousness to the end. (6)An impartial regard to truth and right in causes depending between men and men. 2. The fleshly wisdom to which simplicity is here opposed. Of these wise of this world there are three sorts.(1) Those who will be under the restraints of religion so far as they think is in any respect requisite for their worldly welfare.(2) Those who will take more liberty in serving their worldly designs, only still with a care to be safe from the laws of men and the punishment they inflict.(3) Those who have their full swing, and allow themselves the utmost latitude of expedients for their ends, without any check from human laws at all. II. THE GREAT COMFORT AND JOY IT AFFORDS TO GOOD MEN, WHOSE CONSCIENCES NO WITNESS IT OF THEM. All the advantages that can be made in this world by fleshly wisdom are nothing comparable to the pleasure of simplicity and honesty, and to the joy that ariseth from the conscience of such virtue. 1. It sets a man above the opinion of the world. 2. It is a certain support to a man under all the adversity that befalls him in the world. 3. It gives him a comfortable prospect and good assurance when he is leaving the world. (Archdeacon Clagett.) Handling sincerity as a sign of grace A. Burgess.That sincerity and uprightness of heart in our motives and ends is a sure and infallible sign of our being in the state of grace (1 John 3:21, 22). I. For the opening of this point, LET US CONSIDER HOW UNSAFELY IT MAY BE PRESSED FOR A SIGN IN SOME PARTICULARS, AND THEN WHEREIN THE NATURE OF IT LIETH. 1. It is unwarrantably pressed when uprightness is urged to the exclusion of all respect unto any reward. 2. This sign of uprightness may be pressed unsafely when it is understood of such a perfect uprightness that hath no deceit or falsehood at all joined with it; but as other graces are but in part, we know in part, we love in part, so we are sincere and upright in part. Who can understand his error? We may abuse the sign of sincerity by going too low.(1) When we take sincerity for quietness of conscience that it doth not accuse.(2) When we limit sincerity to one particular fact,
- 6. or to somepassages only.(3) When we judge of sincerity by the immediate ends of actions, not at all attending to the principal and main, "Whatsover ye do, do all to the glory of God." II. In the next place, let us consider WHAT THIS UPRIGHTNESS IS, AND SO WHEREIN IT IS A SIGN. 1. There is no sincerity but where there is a full and powerful change of the whole man by the grace of God. 2. Uprightness is a sign, and then acknowledged to be sincerity, when we do any good duty because God commands. 3. Uprightness is seen in the universality of obedience. Thus a blackamore, though he hath white teeth, yet cannot be called white, because it is in some respect only, so neither may a man be called sincere that hath only partial obedience. 4. Then is uprightness a true sign when the motives of all our actions are pure and heavenly; when all is done because of the glory of God, or for such motives that God's Word doth require. 5. Uprightness is when a man is very diligent and conscientious in internal duties or secret, to perform them, and in spiritual or heart-sins and secret lusts to avoid them. These things thus explained, observe that it is a sure and comfortable sign of grace, when a man is willing to have his soul and all within searched by God (Psalm 17:3).(1) Let us consider how God doth try, that so we may perceive our willingness therein. And the first way is by His Word, "Whatsoever doth manifest, and so reprove evil, is light" (Ephesians 5:13). As by the light of the sunbeams we see the little motes and flies in the air, so by God's Word shining into our hearts we come to see many things sinful and unlawful which we did not perceive before.(2) A second way whereby God proveth is a powerful and soul-searching ministry.(3) The work of conscience within us, that also doth prove us. God hath set up a light within us, and when this is enlightened by the Word, then it makes a man's breast full of light.(4) God trieth us by the illuminations of His Spirit and strong convictions thereby.(5) God trieth when by His Providence we are put upon many duties and commands which it may be at other times did not concern us. Thus God examined Abraham by a command to offer up his only son Isaac. Thus God tried the young man who had great confidence in himself. The vessel's soundness is tried in the fire; the mariner's skill in a storm; the trees in a windy tempest.(6) And this is the fixed way of trial, viz., when God brings us under His chastisements. This manifesteth what metal we are of (1 Peter 1:7).As God useth these several ways to prove us, and the soul of a godly man is ready herein, so in these three cases especially doth a godly man give up himself to be examined. 1. In matters of doctrine. Although heresy may be merely in matter of conscience and opinion, yet for the most part carnal principles and motives are interwoven therewith. 2. In matter of received worship and traditional service of God. Although it be worship that can plead custom from prescription many years' commendation of the universality of learned men; yet an heart truly sincere desireth to have all things examined and proved out of God's Word. 3. This is eminently discovered in matter of practice. III. In the next place let us consider WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF SUCH A GRACIOUS TEMPER IN THE HEART. 1. Where this is it doth not excuse or mitigate sin, but takes in with God against its own self. 2. Not resting upon generals, but particularly applying matters of duty.
- 7. 3. A sincereheart loveth a godly reproof and those that give it. Use of examination. Here is a touchstone and trial for yourselves. Is there love of the light, or fear of the light; are you afraid of the Word of God, a soul-searching ministry, close and particular applications 4. Then suspect all is not sound within thee. (A. Burgess.) Simplicity and sincerity A. Raleigh, D. D.These words have the charm of life in them. They tell us how a man lived: and not in smooth circumstances in sunny weather, but when beset by enemies, difficulties and sorrows; and not in conspicuous places merely, but everywhere, and not for a short time, but always. Here is the kind of life which each one of us should endeavour after as his own. I. CONSCIENCE. 1. The supreme faculty, or something that has supreme place, in man's moral life. The moral life is higher than the intellectual, and the dignity of conscience is that it is the governing element in the moral life. 2. Every one knows what conscience is. Find one who knows that there is a right and a wrong, he knows that by his conscience. Conscience always uses the reason, as, indeed, the other powers, in forming its judgments. But the judgments formed arc higher than the deliverances of reason. 3. Conscience is not infallible; but still it is supreme. It needs instruction, but still a man must act according to the light he has, while always seeking for more. It is the only clock that points to the moral time of day. It is the only shadow that falls on the sun-dial of life. The only barometer that gives true indication of the state of the moral atmosphere within. Go by it. Do not look up at the clock, etc., which rules another man's conscience. 4. A good conscience, like a good wife or husband, deserves only faithful loyalty "as long as ye both shall live." Indeed, moral death has come when conscience has no more testimony to give, or when its witness is systematically disobeyed. But the description of life and character in this passage is yet more pacific. Conscientiousness, after all, is a general quality. In order to know a man — what he is, and how he lives — we need information in particulars. Well, here is one of the particular qualities. II. SIMPLICITY — singleness of mind, purpose, character, life — the opposite of duplicity — doubleness in speech, behaviour, heart. 1. All who are much in the world know very well how full it is of this. Double-speaking — saying one thing and meaning another — using language to hide meaning, or, equivocally, in order to mislead. Double-dealing. "It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way then he boasteth." Double-seeming, too. What masks men wear! Sometimes glittering, sometimes sordid! A man comes rolling home in a carriage, and enters a magnificent house, and after entertaining a splendid company, goes into his own room, brings out his bank-book, and lays it, open, beside the claims upon him which that book shows no way to meet, and sits down there for a little, in misery, under the shadow of the ghastly fact that he is, in reality, a bankrupt. Take an instance on the other side. A man comes trudging home through wet streets, enters a plain house, moderately furnished, takes a simple ordinary meal, and then receives a friend or two. One of them in leaving asks a guinea for some charity. This plain, good man expresses good-will, but shakes his head saying, "You see I am in a very humble way; you must go to the
- 8. rich." Then, by-and-bye,he too looks at his balance-sheet. This man is rolling in wealth, although without any of its outward signs. Yet he can thus hide himself from his own flesh. "Our rejoicing," if we are Christians, is this, the testimony of our conscience that "in simplicity" we live, not saying what we do not mean, nor seeming what we are not. 2. Most of all should we keep this pure simplicity in the religious sphere; avoiding, on the one hand, the high phraseology which expresses for more than we believe, feel, or indeed, really mean; and, on the other, the compromising silence, or brief and hesitating speech, which expresses less than we believe, and feel, and are. III. SINCERITY, which perhaps brings in no characteristically different element. They are almost as twin sisters. The word means, literally, translucence, clearness, of mind. When you took into a diamond you might say it is sincere! Or into a crystal well, or down to the depths of the calm and silent sea! Such is the sincerity of a devout soul. It is called, literally, "the sincerity of God," either because it is like His own, or because it comes directly from Him, and makes us partakers of the Divine nature. Now see what that is, and how it pervades — 1. Nature. Does the sun ever stay his shining? Or the gentler moon withhold her light? Do rivers ever run back to their sources, or tides begin to ebb at half-flood? Has there ever been a spring- time which went round the world to call out flower and leaf, which has not been followed by an autumn with more or less of fruit? Will wood sink? will iron swim? 2. Providence. Does God not rule the world, so that he who speaks the truth and does the right has always the best of it in the end? Yes; and in the middle also, and from the beginning. 3. The gospel, with its great revelation of love, its great donation of life, its power of redemption from sin, its promises of seasonable helps, and its grand, last promise of "eternal life." God is sincere in all. We cannot aim too high, or hope for too much. "If it were not so, He would have told us." He is sincere. Are there any to aver the contrary? Who has come to a throne of grace and been repulsed? Such is the sincerity of God; and it is of this very quality that His children partake when they live the life befitting them. They cannot but be sincere when they yield to His gracious nurture. IV. REJOICING. This kind of life is well adapted to make men glad. Remember, he who writes these words is often weighed down with great labours, suffers much persecution, is misjudged even by his friends. And yet here he retires into his own happy consciousness as into a fortress of peace and safety! And, indeed, no moral state could be imagined so strong, so safe as this. When he has a conscience which he "keeps," or rather which keeps him — when he lives a simple life — when he breathes in the sincerity of God — let him have no fear. V. But now we begin to long for another word that shall MAKE THIS SECURITY WHOLESOME TO US, as well as deep and assured. For is there not some possibility that this profoundly conscious satisfaction in the possession of personal righteousness may come to have some tinge of "self-righteousness" in it? VI. The word is GRACE. "By the grace of God" we have so lived. Particularly "not by fleshly wisdom." No man can ever reach the heights of safety and purity and joy by that way. Yet that is the principle which multitudes of people are adopting for self-development. "The fleshly wisdom" is just "the wisdom of the world," with its watchings, and windings, and insincerities, with its soft speech, and fair appearance, and secret ways. Does any one think he can develop his nature, and do justice to his immortality by that? Oh, miserable mistake! Not with fleshly wisdom, "but by the grace of God" — by its cleansings, its kindlings, its renewings, its growth;
- 9. by its wholedrift and discipline we have "our conversation in the world." And because it is "the grace of God," those who take it, and trust in it, and put it to use, cannot fail in some measure to realise and embody, and cannot fail, ultimately, to perfect the fair ideal of Scriptural holiness. (A. Raleigh, D. D.) On sincerity A. R. Beard.Another would have said, My rejoicing is this, the testimony of the world, that by my knowledge of its ways and adroit use of circumstances, I have succeeded in my favourite projects of amassing wealth, of increasing my power, of rising to a high elevation on the steeps of ambition. Sincerity is the virtue to which I would invite your special attention; as it is not only a moral virtue, but a distinguished evangelical grace, essential to the character of every just man, and of every disciple of Christ. Hence is it so strenuously enjoined in the sacred volume. Joshua exhorts the Israelities to "fear and serve the Lord in sincerity." This virtue is inseparable from the heart and mind of all who worship the Father in spirit and in truth. It is a radical principle in the constitution of every virtuous society — the soul of union, of co-operation, of friendship, of love, of piety, of devotion. Without it there is no morality, no religion. What then, let us inquire, is the nature of this virtue, and what are its requisitions? The term sincere, in its moral application, implies a clearness and transparency of character. But though the law of sincerity imperatively forbids all deception, it does not oblige us to lay our whole hearts open to the scrutiny of every curious eye, nor loudly to divulge every unseasonable truth which may occupy our minds. There can be no violation of sincerity in maintaining a proper reserve, provided such reserve does not lead our friend or neighbour to a wrong conclusion; to trust when he shall doubt, or to lay open his bosom when he shall cover it with triple mail. We are under no obligation to give offence, or provoke enmity. There are cases in which it would be extreme cruelty to divulge all we have heard or known of a neighbour's misfortunes or misconduct, Numberless are the deceptions which are practised every day by men upon men and by men on themselves. As to the latter, it is but too notorious with what ingenuity they disguise their vices, varnish them over till they assume the semblance of virtues, or amiable weaknesses. Not less numerous are the modes in which men practise insincerity towards others, by hypocrisy and falsehood, fraud and perjury, Courtesy is a Christian virtue. It is not opposed to sincerity but to vulgarity. The insincerity of which we speak has the semblance of courtesy, but it is courtesy in excess. It is learned in the school of deceit, in the court of fashion. Custom, the continuator of many an evil practice, has given its sanction to a certain species of phraseology which is termed polite, and which, by general agreement, is understood to signify nothing; nevertheless, a regard for Christian sincerity should induce us to employ it with caution. There are also tricks and deceptions in certain transactions, which, by a similar convention, are supposed to be accompanied by no moral turpitude; nay, the dexterity with which they are conducted confers the highest praise on their agent. But is it not evident to every Christian man, that let such transactions receive whatever sanction they may from custom and the world, they are totally unauthorised by the Word of God, which is the Christian's standard of right and wrong? It has been maintained, in opposition to the godly sincerity of the apostle, that dissimulation may be lawfully practised for the establishment of some useful design — to promote a movement in politics, or confirm a doctrine in religion — and that if the end be laudable or beneficial, the means are indifferent. This opinion, founded as it is on ignorance and sin, has been productive of much evil. The impure fountain must send forth an impure stream. Even when the end in view is really to be desired, if vicious means be employed to effect it, they excite a just and natural suspicion that it has some ulterior object
- 10. which is selfish.Moreover, how often are we mistaken in the nature of true good! How often is that which we contemplate as beautiful and lovely regarded by others as deformed and odious! They may foresee nothing but misery in the very project from which we anticipate happiness. Sincerity is the characteristic of a noble and magnanimous disposition, as much as its opposite vice is the indication of what is mean and ungenerous. A brave man disdains to hang out false colours, to take unfair advantage even of an enemy, to appear what he is not. As insincerity vitiates every virtue, it disappoints every hope; for it is written, "The hypocrite's hope shall perish, his trust shall be in a spider's web. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand; he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure." The motives of a man's conduct often lie nearer the surface than he imagines, even when he deems them most profound; and hence it happens that almost every species of imposition is so easily detected. Such are the mischiefs of insincerity, its fallacy and insecurity, its suspicion and its punishment. The benefits of its opposite virtue, equally striking and numerous, are enhanced by the contrast. The sincere man is fearless and consistent. He dreads no scrutiny; he is under no apprehension of being caught in the snare of his own contradictions; he feels conscious that the more closely you inspect him, the stronger will grow your conviction of his integrity; so that, even from selfish motives, it would be wise always to act sincerely. Nothing is more abhorrent to the whole spirit of Christianity than every species of hypocrisy, whether in word, in deed, or in dumb show, from whatever motive it proceeds, or on whatsoever pretence it is practised. Hypocrisy is the most efficient agent of Antichrist, and it has done more injury to the cause of Christianity than the most decided open hostility. It works by sap, and effects its wicked purposes by manoeuvring in the dark. The apostles of Christ, as became the disciples of such a master, equally with Him, condemn hypocrisy, and are earnest in their commendation of truth, honesty, candour, sincerity. They desire us to have respect to God in all our actions, and whatsoever we do, to do it heartily unto the Lord, and not as unto men. With sincerity the apostle conjoins simplicity, its natural associate. But of this virtue it may with good reason be observed that it is more the gift of nature than of education; one of those rare endowments which she bestows only on her favourites. Generally considered, it is a quality the most pleasing to a pure and uncorrupted taste in everything with which it can be connected. We admire it in architecture, in furniture, in dress, in manners, in literary composition, and hence the matchless beauty of the sacred Scriptures, which still continue to please and never pall by repetition. So far as simplicity is a moral virture, excluding all sinister views and double-dealing, it is in every man's power, and it is every man's duty to acquire it. To the young I would more particularly recommend this virtue. In them we naturally expect to find openness and ingenuousness, and are cruelly disappointed when we discover any attempt at imposition or deceit. They are most unfavourable omens of their future worth and respectability. The distortion of the sapling grows inveterate in the tree, and a slight disease which a tiny remedy might remove becomes by neglect incurable. (A. R. Beard.) On sincerity in religion C. R. Maturin.We all value sincerity in religion, but many overlook that the only thing which can give value to this sincerity is — that we are sincere in true religion. To suppose a man sincere in a false system is only to suppose him lulled in insensibility, or hardened in obstinacy; it is to suppose him placed almost beyond the reach of conviction. What are the evidences of that sincerity — how a man may know himself to be really in earnest in his spiritual concerns?
- 11. 1. The firstthing that will enable us to answer in the affirmative is, that there is no compromising spirit in our religion; that we "render unto God the things that are God's," without, what I may call, the discount of the world; that we do not deliberately suffer "one jot or tittle of the law to pass unfulfilled." This is a strong evidence of sincerity. Men who arc in their hearts slaves to the world, and yet unable wholly to throw off the yoke of conscience, generally contrive to reconcile both, by constructing a system of religion for themselves, that they believe will pacify the one and enable them to retain their hold on the other — they contrive a religion consisting of external forms, but which has not the power to extort from them the sacrifice of one beloved lust. 2. Another and scarce an inferior proof is perseverance. There are few individuals who have not at some period of life felt religious impressions; there is not a libertine whom his vices have not sometimes terrified into partial reformation; but there is no permanence. 3. I add, that in my mind a strong evidence of sincerity in religion is, that it bears the test of solitude, and does not desert or upbraid us in the hour of lonely reflection. So universal are the workings of pride, prejudice, and error, that there is great need of distinguishing between the effects they produce on professors of religion, and the operation of very dissimilar causes, that end in producing the same effects. Thus passion will produce zeal in religion, of which the outward evidences will be as radiant as if the fire was kindled from heaven. Every passion and every vice may assume the disguise of an angel of light. But the system they defend, and the consequences they suggest, will not stand the test of solitude. 4. But the greatest proof of sincerity, that before which all others fade away, and without which, indeed, not one can be an admissible evidence, is the conformity of our lives to our. principles. Other evidences may deceive us — but this never can. Not they who say unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of My Father. (C. R. Maturin.) When I therefore was thus minded Yea and nay men J. Kennedy, D. D.(sermon to the young): — Let us — I. NOTE THE FACTS TO WHICH PAUL LINKS HIS SINGLENESS AND HONESTY OF PURPOSE, 1. Christ was not yea and nay.(1) In His personal character He was yea. He combined the gracefulness and flexibility of the willow and the strength of the oak, but He had no double- mindedness. He adapted Himself to the trembling sinner and the confident Pharisee, but He was one and the same notwithstanding.(2) So was and is His gospel. Adapted to all classes and conditions, it accommodates itself to none. It has not one set of doctrines for the favoured few and another for the world. 2. The promises of God. There is no vacillation about them. God means all He says, and He says what He means. 3. But what had these to do with the charge of trimming? The answer is in verses 21, 22. Paul's character was modelled on the character of Christ: he had not acted according to the flesh, but according to the new nature formed by the Spirit of Christ. We have here a notable example of bringing the common things of life under the powers of the world to come. The apostle had planned a journey, and to change it might seem a small matter. But not so with Paul. His
- 12. purposes were formed,and could only be changed under the eye of the Great Master. And he was so imbued with His Spirit, that he could not do otherwise. II. EXAMINE SOME VARIETIES OF YEA AND NAY MEN. 1. The wicked yea and nay men — the man who intentionally, and without regard to right or wrong, is now yea and now nay, as best suits his purpose. This man is a saint with saints, and a devil with devils. As a politician he is Whig or Tory, democrat or aristocrat, provided only he can attain his end. In religion, business, and social life he is all things unto all men in a bad sense. 2. The weak yea and nay man may not be at heart a bad man. He would not deliberately lie or drink or swear to be in keeping with his company; but within certain limits he is as variable as the wind. You never know when you have him. He is like the chameleon which has no colours of his own, but "borrows from his neighbour's hue." 3. The compound of these two. There are those in whom you find wickedness so combined that you cannot say whether the fool or the knave predominates — objects now of anger, now of pity. 4. There are also instances of yea-and-nayness in the lives of the most honest and courageous under temptation — Peter. III. URGE THE CULTIVATION OF THE OPPOSITE CHARACTER. Be not yea and nay men — 1. In the morals of life and of business. You have just entered on life, will you surrender yourselves to the evil current or will you resist it? Yea-and-nayness may bring temporary success, but it spells ruin in the long run. 2. In the department of religion and faith. The question determined of old on Carmel should be determined by you now. Is your life to be godless or godly? 3. In the practical following out of your Christian principles. (J. Kennedy, D. D.) Meaning what we say J. P. Gledstone.(To young men): — Paul was misjudged as to his motives and consistency. It seems that he had intended to visit Corinth both on his way to Macedonia and on his return; but something that he thought of sufficient moment led him to change his mind, and his word was not kept. Backbiters put this down to caprice. This led Paul to state upon what principle he acted in this and in every case. I. WHEN WE SAY YES OR NO WE SHOULD MEAN IT. 1. Our words should be serious. Paul's earnest spirit dreaded a light tongue, and to be regarded as a frivolous, man, not to say insincere, was more than he could bear. And it ought not to be a shackle on speech to have regard to the reality of things. Dr. Johnson could not endure the man who could not tell a story without exaggerating. And then in the work of life we should avoid a loose way of speaking — haphazard, questionable, plausible statements which, while appearing to be true, shade off into falsehood. Every word and action should go from the mint of conscience stamped with the King's image and superscription. 2. The apostle condemns "purposing according to the flesh," i.e., according to some shifting principle of an evil nature. The apostle comes down hard upon all mental reservations, upon the
- 13. amiable weakness whichpromises you anything and gives you nothing, as well as upon the craft which keeps while it pretends to give. He seems to have especially in view our tendency to please ourselves. If we say "yes" or "no" to avoid trouble, if we say anything out of expediency or self-seeking, or love of popularity, we rest on a carnal foundation and "purpose according to the flesh." Truth often puts us to terrible inconvenience, but a good man speaketh the truth in his heart, and will change not even though he has sworn to his hurt. II. WE OUGHT NOTTO HOLD TO OUR YEA AND NAY STUBBORNLY AND IN SPITE OF FRESH LIGHT FROM ABOVE. We may mean our word when we speak it, and purpose it in obedience to present knowledge of the will of God; but we may not affirm that we will keep it, come what will. "A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." It was thus with Paul here and in Acts 16:6-9. In every case we should say, "If the Lord will." It is a sign of weakness and wickedness when any one sets himself upon his purpose, when God has warned him to forsake it. Take, e.g., Jephthah and Saul (1 Samuel 14:24-33). Do not stick to your resolution when you see that God has a different one. What does it matter about your promising when the Lord orders something else? But you say, "If I don't abide by my word, what will be thought of it?" Why, you must take your chance, which, with God on your side, will not be a bad one. Conclusion: 1. If you act on these principles you will be honourable men in all the relations of life. 2. Is it not an insult to a Christian man whose yea is yea, etc., to be asked to swear it? 3. What would England be with a truth-loving and truth-speaking people? 4. Only remember that all must be rooted in a true gospel (ver. 20). (J. P. Gledstone.) Purpose H. W. Beecher.A man's purpose of life should be like river, which was born of a thousand little rills in the mountains; and when, at last, it has reached its manhood in the plain, though, if you watch it, you shall see little eddies that seem as if they had changed their minds, and were going back again to the mountains, yet all its mighty current flows, changeless, to the sea. If you build a dam across it, in a few hours it will go over it with a voice of victory. If tides check it at its mouth, it is only that, when they ebb, it can sweep on again to the ocean. So goes the Amazon or the Orinoco across a continent — never losing its way, or changing its direction for the thousand streams that fall into it on the right hand and on the left, but only using them to increase its force, and bearing them onward in its resistless channel. (H. W. Beecher.) For Hearers reminded of the theme of preachers S. Martin.I. PAUL WAS A TEACHER, BUT HE TAUGHT IN ORDER TO LEAD MEN TO THE GREAT TEACHER. 1. This is peculiar to the Christian dispensation. The prophets preached, but their direct object, with the exception of their prophecies of the Messiah, was not to lead to another. This was the case, however, with John the Baptist. He preached, not concerning his own mission, but the coming Christ, for whom he made way. So Paul never set up for being a master, which Jesus had forbidden, but taught men to sit at the feet of God's Son.
- 14. 2. As ateacher, Christ surpasses all who came before Him, or have followed Him. The treasures of wisdom and of knowledge are in Him; the Spirit without measure rests upon Him; He is the Truth. God had rent His heavens to say to men, "Hear Him." Paul echoed this. 3. And the true ministers of Christ imitate Paul. They do not bring before you some ancient sage or modern teacher; why should they exhibit the portrait when they can show you the original? And if any of you be not learning of Him, learn of Him now. II. PAUL WAS A MINISTER, AND HE MINISTERED TO BRING MEN INTO SYMPATHY WITH THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 1. He was no priest himself, except in the sense in which he taught that all Christians are priests. His doctrine was, that Christ had once in the end of the world put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 2. And this was the secret of his glorying in the Cross. Now, if "the Son of God, Jesus Christ," died merely as Stephen died, why should Paul glory in His death? 3. And God's true ministers follow Paul in this also. When men come to them acknowledging their sinfulness, and craving pardon and absolution, they say, "Go to God's High Priest, Christ Jesus." III. PAUL WAS A HERALD AND AN AMBASSADOR, AND HE PROCLAIMED THE SON OF GOD, JESUS CHRIST, TO BE KING OF KINGS. 1. He taught subjection to earthly sovereigns within a certain limit, but in religious matters he was subject to no human potentate: he came into collision even with Peter. We are all equal with reference to the Saviour — "one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." 2. Here again God's true ministers follow Paul. They say that the government is on Christ's shoulder, and that the Son of God is the fountain of law, and of all honour. Let us crown Him Lord of all — with our love, confidence, prayers, obedience, zeal and devotedness.Conclusion: 1. God's chief gift is His Son. He has given you many precious things, but there is no gift like that. 2. You are in the keeping of Christ. By trusting in Him you have committed yourselves to Him; He has charge of your body, soul, and spirit. From His hand you can never be plucked by any foe, because it is the hand of "the Son of God, Jesus Christ." 3. How is it that you do not love Jesus Christ and trust Him more? You do not read or think enough about Him. (S. Martin.) In Him was yea In Him was yea E. Paxton Hood.How much is included in the word Yes! Upon that word, waiting for it, what anxious hearts have hung! The soul cries for certainty and satisfaction, and — I. CHRIST SOLVES THE PROBLEM OF NATURE. We are perplexed by "the burden of the mystery" around us, and yearn for its solution. This yearning has borne witness and fruit in all ages. We see this especially in Hindooism — the religion of the natural man — God without character, consciousness, will. And Hindooism is making its converts among us. The myth system of Strauss, the pantheistic absolute of Hegel, the Pantheistic substance of Schelling, the
- 15. idealisation of Fichte,all these systems have their disciples among us. Nature answers no questions, resolves no doubts; she meets the inquisitive intelligence of man; and when these two marry, they make a religion. But it is a religion without motives, and without safeguards. Now upon this state of mind Christ descends, and in Him is the Divine assurance. He says, "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father." In this personality God lifts the curtain from His eternity. "He" was and "is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person." As light paints likenesses, so that I may have the express image of a person I have never seen, so Christ is the portrait of God. I know God is a person and a power, a conscience and a will, when I am able to believe in Jesus. There has come no answer from nature, or to nature; but He has come, and the true light shineth. II. CHRIST RECONCILES THE CONTRADICTIONS OF SCRIPTURE. How is it that in God is "no variableness nor shadow of turning," and yet He hears and answers prayer? How is it "the pure in heart see God, whom no man can see"? How is it that a "man is justified by faith," and yet "by grace"? How is it that God is omnipotent, and yet man is spoken to as free? Well, no doubt contradictions exist, but they are explained in Him: Contradictions may exist in God even as opposite parts exist in a circle, but it is the circle which explains. See men at work on opposite walls of a building, while it grows, opposite to each other they work; but the unity of the conception and the labour is beheld in the roof. I look on the doctrine of God's grace, and man's responsibility, they seem to be in conflict with each other; so the infinity and the eternal omnipotence of God, and the freedom and the power, and the volition of man, but these things become clearer to me as I see Jesus. Hence He is called the "corner-stone"; the corner-stone meets what otherwise would never meet, reconciles what could not be reconciled. III. JESUS GIVES THE YES TO YOUR MOST INTENSE QUESTIONS, AS OTHER MASTERS AND CONSOLERS CANNOT GIVE IT, That which is higher than I am, and which is satisfied, should satisfy me. Christ's knowledge, experience, love, and sympathy, surely are greater than mine; He was satisfied, and this should satisfy me. This may be a low ground to occupy, but I can from this climb far higher. I am in sorrow; if I could feel that sorrow had any purpose or plan, I could bear it. I go to Him, and I say, "Lord, is there any plan in my pain?" and "in Him is yea." "The cup which My Father hath given, shall I not drink it?" But, ah! is there any life beyond this? Wast Thou satisfied? "Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am." "Because I live, ye shall live also." And salvation! may I hope, may I trust Thee? "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out." Conclusion: We read of the disciples, on one of the mornings after the resurrection, they saw Jesus standing on the shore, and knew not that it was Jesus; but at last they knew; so, after wading through seas, and fires, and fogs, may it be given to us to see Him. (E. Paxton Hood.) The Divine yea W. M. Statham.The human heart cries out to God, and can be at rest alone when its mysterious questions meet the answering Yea! Religion is not imagination, it is revelation. All is still incertitude outside the Christ. I. THERE ARE FALSE CONCEPTIONS CONCERNING THE CHARACTER OF GOD. 1. For ages the world had worshipped gods and goddesses, whose ritual had made even vice a part of worship. The Pagan deities at the best were coarse and hard and cruel. Christ came and gave the true conception, "God is love."
- 16. 2. If Hislips are sealed concerning much that curiosity might like to know, His word is clear and convincing concerning all that we need to know. II. THERE WERE MISTAKEN EFFORTS AFTER A DIVINE LIFE. Men had been for ages trying their own philosophies of goodness! Multitudes had counted not health or home, life or beauty, dear to them, that they might escape the taint of evil, and rise through self-conquest up to God. But the ascetic economy of life did not work well. Repression only drives life into uncongenial and unhallowed channels. Is this earthly life from God? Are human interests Divine? Are love and marriage from God? Does He smile on innocent joys? How perfectly all this is answered in the Redeemer's life. "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world," etc. III. THERE WERE LONGINGS AFTER THE FULFILMENT OF DIVINE PROMISE. Would God indeed visit men and bless them? was the problem alike of philosopher and saint. But all the promises that travailed in creation and history had their birth-hour in the advent of Christ; for all the promises of God in Him are Yea, and in Him Amen. I want to know if God indeed is love? — if man is indeed made for immortality? Left to the profoundest students of philosophy, I am in a school of Yea and Nay. Now the materialist claims me as dust; now the poet permits me to make imagery out of an hereafter. It is only when I come into fellowship with Him who brought life and immortality to light that I can say, "In Him is Yea! " Concerning the Divine beneficence, God is love;and concerning immortality. "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (W. M. Statham.) The everlasting yea J. Leckie, D. D.This was Paul's answer to a charge of vacillation. Jesus Christ whom he preached was not changeful; how then could His apostle, so identified with His truth and with Himself, be changeful? It might seem to some a strange vindication, but not to those who felt in their inmost soul the Yea of Christ, and how completely Paul was absorbed in that. The very unexpectedness of the application gives it force. If there is such a connection between Jesus Christ, and adherence to a purpose as to a journey, how closely connected must the whole of a Christian's life be to Christ. Consider — I. THE FACT OF CHRIST'S ONENESS. This is a truth not of mere speculative interest. It has an immediate practical bearing upon our faith and confidence. The conviction, or the feeling of it alone, gives rest to our souls. And yet it is precisely here that Christ seems to some encompassed with difficulty. There are great contrasts in Christ. 1. He has a side of gloom and terror, like an Alpine precipice, or some gigantic black cloud hiding sun and sky, and portending terrible storm; and a side gentle and soft and sweet, like a garden that faces the sunny south full of beauty and richest fruits are floating with all delicate and balmy odours. Hear Him as He rolls out woe after woe like peals of thunder, and then follow Him as He showers blessings where He goes. And yet, was it not because He was so loving that He was so stern? Perfect love is opposed to all that is opposed to love. He was not Yea and Nay because He showed different sides to different things. Had He done otherwise there would have been a surrendering of truth and right, and therefore of love.(1) Are not nature and life full of unities which appear to be contraries? Light and darkness, cold and heat balance each other and conduce to one result. There is a negative and a positive pole in electricity, and it is by combination of two opposite tendencies that the planets are kept in their steady course round the sun.(3) Look into the human heart and you will find the same principle in operation. Love and
- 17. hatred are opposites,and yet they do not destroy unity if the soul loves what ought to be loved and .hates what ought to be hated. Hope and fear are opposites, but are both necessary. Does not imagination need its opposite of common-sense to prevent it running riot, and nothing more needs the widening influence of imagination than strong common-sense. The character of Christ embraces the like contrasts, but the oneness shines forth all the more brightly from these apparent contradictions. 2. The like is to be said of another contrast that stands out in the life of Christ — that between His humility and His self-assertion. Both are prominent, and both are equally appropriate to the God-man. His humility was human, His self-assertion was Divine, and was part of the revelation which He had to give. His is a unity not formal or studied, but natural, resulting simply from what He was. It is a unity to be felt, as all unities must be, in contemplating the whole, and in realising the aim and meaning of the whole. II. THE WEALTH AND FULNESS OF THE YEA THAT IS IN CHRIST. Thomas Carlyle speaks finely of the everlasting Yea which the soul of man needs for rest. Can we find anywhere a word so full of substance and welcome as Yes? Christ is the everlasting Yea — the one solid, complete and availing Yes to the soul of man. The everlasting Yea cannot be an abstract truth. No truth, however sublime, can give the heart rest. The everlasting Yea must be an infinite person, and yet one that can come close and near us; must be perfect, and yet His perfection genial and tender; must bring God to us, and bring our souls to rest in God, and there is none but Christ does this. 1. Christ is God's Yes to us. Men have doubted whether the world meant Yes or No. There are times when nature seems to say Yes — and other times when man can hear nothing but a fierce No. To a whole class of powerful writers there is no real blessing anywhere. Others find a struggle between the Yea and Nay, as if the goodness at work in the universe were not able to carry out its purposes on account of the opposing element. But Christ is God's unmistakable Yes. He showed by His miracles that all the powers of nature were wielded by love, and His life and death were the translating of the Divine Yes into intelligible speech, God is love. 2. Christ is God's Yes to us by being Yes to God for us. His obedience and death was the putting of a Yea in the room of our Nay. Sin is the saying No to God. It is denial of God's wisdom and love. It is distrust of God, negation of His claims and the setting up of our will in the place of His. Hell is the development of this No. In the nature which disbonoured God by saying No, Christ uttered a sublime, uniform, intense Yes, by action, and suffering, and speech. 3. The yea of positive truth is in Him. He affirms: you find little denial in His words. The beatitudes are the most solid of all utterances. The like depth and breadth of affirmation is in the utterances. "God is a Spirit," etc. "If ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your children," etc. What substance and wealth there is in His promises and invitations. And then think of the solid grandeur He gave to the word love. 4. Jesus Christ is Yes to all the deepest longings and highest aspirations of the heart. There is not any momentous question to which Jesus has not answered Yes. And this affirmation of Christ is uttered with clearness and certainty. On all central subjects His language is luminous, reiterated and emphatic. Conclusion: Have we taken Christ's Yea to God as our own? Do we accept it and rejoice in it, and present it to God? The proof and the outcome of this will be the utterance of Yea to God. (J. Leckie, D. D.)
- 18. Christ's tone ofdecision J. Parker, D. D.Why this tone of decision and clearness? Why this pomp of definiteness? Because the Lord Christ is not a speculator but a Saviour. When the lifeboat goes out it does not go out to reason with the drowning men but to lay hold of them. When the sea is sunny, when the air is a blessing, then boats may approach one another, and talk to one another more or less merrily and kindly, and as it were on equal terms; but when the wind is alive, when the sea and sky seem to have no dividing line, and death has opened its jaws to swallow up, as if in a bottomless pit, all its prey, then the lifeboat says, "We have not come out here to reason and to conjecture and to bandy opinions with you, but to seize you and save you." That is what Christ has come for. (J. Parker, D. D.) COMMENTARIES EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE) Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(19) By me and Silvanus and Timotheus.—We note an undesigned coincidence with Acts 18:5, where Silas (whose identity with Silvanus is thus proved) is related to have come with Timotheus to join St. Paul at Corinth. The three names are joined together in the same order in 1Thessalonians 1:1, and 2Thessalonians 1:1. Was not yea and nay, but in him was yea.—From the forensic point of view, this was, of course, hardly an adequate defence against the charge of inconsistency. The argument was, so to speak, one of ethical congruity. It was infinitely unlikely that one who preached Christ, the absolutely True Christ, who enforced every precept with the emphatic “Amen, Amen” (the word occurs thirty-one times in St. Matthew, fourteen times in St. Mark, seven times in St. Luke, and in its reduplicated form twenty-five times in St. John), “Verily, verily,” should afterwards be shamelessly untruthful, and use words that paltered with a double sense. But in him was yea.—Better, but in him Yea has been and still is so, as His great characterising word. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary1:15-24 The apostle clears himself from the charge of levity and inconstancy, in not coming to Corinth. Good men should be careful to keep the reputation of sincerity and constancy; they should not resolve, but on careful thought; and they will not change unless for weighty reasons. Nothing can render God's promises more certain: his giving them through Christ, assures us they are his promises; as the wonders God wrought in the life, resurrection, and ascension of his Son, confirm faith. The Holy Spirit makes Christians firm in the faith of the gospel: the quickening of the Spirit is an earnest of everlasting life; and the comforts of the Spirit are an earnest of everlasting joy. The apostle desired to spare the blame he feared would be unavoidable, if he had gone to Corinth before he learned what effect his former letter produced. Our strength and ability are owing to faith; and our comfort and joy must flow
- 19. from faith. Theholy tempers and gracious fruits which attend faith, secure from delusion in so important a matter. Barnes' Notes on the BibleFor the Son of God - In this verse, and the following, Paul states that he felt himself bound to maintain the strictest veracity for two reasons; the one, that Jesus Christ always evinced the strictest veracity 2 Corinthians 1:19; the other, God was always true to all the promises that He made 2 Corinthians 1:20; and as he felt himself to be the servant of the Saviour and of God, he was bound by the most sacred obligations also to maintain a character irreproachable in regard to veracity on the meaning of the phrase "Son of God," see the note, Romans 1:4. Jesus Christ - It is agreed, says Bloomfield, by the best commentators, ancient and modern, that by Jesus Christ is here meant his doctrine. The sense is, that the preaching respecting Jesus Christ, did not represent him as fickle, and changeable; as unsettled, and as unfaithful; but as true, consistent, and faithful. As that had been the regular and constant representation of Paul and his fellow-laborers in regard to the Master whom they served, it was to be inferred that they felt themselves bound sacredly to observe the strictest constancy and veracity. By us ... - Silvanus, mentioned here, is the same person who in the Acts of the Apostles is called Silas. He was with Paul at Philippi, and was imprisoned there with him Acts 16, and was afterward with Paul and Timothy at Corinth when he first visited that city; Acts 18:5. Paul was so much attached to him, and had so much confidence in him, that he joined his name with his own in several of his epistles; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1. Was not yea and nay - Our representation of him was not that he was fickle and changeable. But in him was yea - Was not one thing at one time, and another at another. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. All that he says is true; all the promises that he makes are firm; all his declarations are faithful. Paul may refer to the fact that the Lord Jesus when on earth was eminently characterized by truth. Nothing was more striking than his veracity. He called himself "the truth," as being eminently true in all his declarations. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life;" John 14:6; compare Revelation 3:7. And thus Revelation 3:14 he is called "the faithful and true witness." In all his life he was eminently distinguished for that. His declarations were simple truth; his narratives were simple, unvarnished, uncolored, unexaggerated statements of what actually occurred. He never disguised the truth; never prevaricated; never had any mental reservation; never deceived; never used any word, or threw in any circumstance, that was suited to lead the mind astray. He himself said that this was the great object which he had in view in coming into the world. "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth;" John 18:37. As Jesus Christ was thus distinguished for simple truth, Paul felt that he was under sacred obligations to imitate him, and always to evince the same inviolable fidelity. The most deeply felt obligation on earth is that which the Christian feels to imitate the Redeemer. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary19. Proof of the unchangeableness of the doctrine from the unchangeableness of the subject of it, namely, Jesus Christ. He is called "the Son of God" to show the impossibility of change in One who is co-equal with God himself (compare 1Sa 15:29; Mal 3:6). by me … Silvanus and Timotheus—The Son of God, though preached by different preachers, was one and the same, unchangeable. Silvanus is contracted into Silas (Ac 15:22; compare 1Pe 5:12).
- 20. in him wasyea—Greek, "is made yea in Him"; that is, our preaching of the Son of God is confirmed as true in Him (that is, through Him; through the miracles wherewith He has confirmed our preaching) [Grotius]; or rather, by the witness of the Spirit which He has given (2Co 1:21, 22) and of which miracles were only one, and that a subordinate manifestation. Matthew Poole's Commentary The apostle here glveth a reason why he had made truth and sincerity so much his business (which reason obligeth us also, who are as much bound as he to study a conformity to Christ); saith he: The Son of God, who was preached among you, that is, Jesus Christ; who, though (as some observe) he is in these Epistles no where called God, but Lord, is here called the Son of God; which can be understood in no other sense, than by eternal generation; for those who are only the sons of God by adoption, are not the subjects of ministers’ preaching. We read of this Silvanus, 1 Thessalonians 1:1 1 Peter 5:12: some think that he was the same person who is called Silas, Acts 16:19. Of Timothy we have heard before. They were both ministers who (as well as Apollos before mentioned) had laboured in the gospel amongst the Corinthians. Was not yea and nay, but in him was yea: now (saith the apostle) that Christ, whom both I, and other ministers of the gospel, have preached to you, is not uncertain and unconstant, one thing at one time, and in one place, another thing at another time, and in another place. He was only one and the same; his doctrine was always certain and uniform, and consistent with itself; and our conversation ought to be suitable to him and his doctrine. Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleFor the Son of God, Jesus Christ,.... The apostle having asserted that the Gospel preached by them was not yea and nay, variable and different, or what was affirmed at one time was denied at another, proceeds to point out the subject of the Gospel ministry, the Son of God, Jesus Christ; that Christ is "the Son of God": this article he began his ministry with, Acts 9:20, and all the apostles affirmed the same thing; and which is of the greatest moment and importance, and ought to be abode by, insisted on, and frequently inculcated; as that he is the eternal Son of God, existed as such from everlasting, is of the same nature, and has the same perfections with his Father; and therefore is able to destroy the works of the devil, for which he was manifested in the flesh, and every way equal to the business of redemption, which he has finished; and having passed into the heavens under this character, is a powerful advocate with the Father; and which renders him a sure foundation for the church, and a proper object of faith: that the Son of God is Christ, anointed to bear and execute the office of a mediator in the several parts and branches of it; a prophet to teach his people, a priest to make atonement and intercession for them, and a King to govern and protect them: and that the Son, who is become the Lord's Christ, is Jesus, a Saviour; and that salvation is alone by him, to which he was appointed from eternity, and was sent in the fulness of time to effect it; and by his obedience, sufferings, and death, is become the author of it, and is the only able, willing, and suitable Saviour for poor sinners. This is the principal subject and strain of the Gospel ministry; and
- 21. which makes itgood news, and glad tidings to lost perishing sinners. The agreement between the faithful ministers of the Gospel is here plainly hinted, who was preached among you by us, even by me, and Silvanus and Timotheus. These ministers being mentioned by the apostle with himself, shows his humility in putting them on a level with himself; and his modesty and candour in not monopolizing the Gospel to himself, but allowing others to be preachers of it as well as he: and his design herein seems to be for the confirmation of the Gospel, and to show that he was not singular and alone, and could not be blamed by them, without blaming others; and chiefly to express the harmony and unanimity of Gospel preachers. The prophets of the Old Testament, and the apostles of the New, agreed in all the doctrines and truths of the Gospel; so did the apostles themselves; and so all faithful dispensers of the word have in all different times and places agreed, and still do agree; which serves greatly to corroborate the truth of the Gospel. The Gospel being faithfully preached by these persons, was not yea and nay; it had no contradiction in it; each part agreed together, was entirely harmonious, and consistent. Their doctrine was, that Christ is the Son of God, truly and properly God; that he took upon him the office of a Mediator, and executes it; that he is the only Saviour of sinners; that God has chosen a certain number of men in Christ before the foundation of the world, has made a covenant with them in Christ, and blessed them in him; that Christ has redeemed them by his blood; that these are regenerated by the Spirit and grace of Christ, are justified by his righteousness, and shall finally persevere, and be partakers of eternal life; which is all of a piece, and in it no yea and nay. Yea and nay doctrines are particular election, the possibility of the salvation of the non-elect, the salvability of all men, and universal redemption; justification by faith, and, as it were, by the works of the law; conversion, partly by grace, and partly by the will of man; preparatory works, offers, and days of grace; and final perseverance made a doubt of: but such is not the true ministry of Christ and his apostles, but in him was yea; the Gospel, as in Christ, and as it comes from him, and has been preached by his apostles, and faithful ministers, is all of a piece; its constant and invariable strain, and by which it may be known and distinguished, is, to display the free, rich, and sovereign grace of God, to magnify and exalt the person and offices of Christ, to debase the creature, and to engage persons to the performance of good works, on Gospel principles, and by Gospel motives, and for right ends. The apostle using those words, "yea and nay", conforms to the language of the Jews, his countrymen, who to magnify their doctors and Rabbins, and to raise their credit, say such things of them; ""yea, yea", are the words of the house or school of Shammai; , "yea, yea", are the words of the school of Hillell (b).'' And in another place (c); "the receiving and giving, or the dealings of a disciple of a wise man, are in truth and faithfulness. He says, , "concerning nay, nay, and concerning yea, yea".'' But what is here said better agrees with the principles and practices of the disciples and followers of Christ. (b) T. Bab. Moed Katon, fol. 20. 1.((c) Maimon. Hilch. Dayot, c. 5. sect. 13. Geneva Study Bible{11} For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, {s} was not yea and nay, but in {t} him was yea.
- 22. (11) He addsalso with himself his companions, as witnesses with whom he fully consented in teaching the same thing, that is, the same Christ. (s) Was not different and wavering. (t) That is, in God. EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES) Meyer's NT CommentaryHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-19.htm"2 Corinthians 1:19. Ὁ γὰρ τοῦ Θεοῦ υἱός] or, as Lachmann, Rückert, and Tischendorf, following preponderating testimony, have it rightly: ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ γὰρ υἱός (γάρ in the fourth place; see Fritzsche, Quaest. Luc. p. 100; Ellendt, Lex. Soph, I. p. 339; Hermann, ad Philoct. 1437), marks the τοῦ Θεοῦ as emphatic, in order to make what is to be said of Christ, οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ κ. οὔ, felt at once in its divine certainty. To be God’s Son and yet ναὶ κ. οὔ would be a contradiction. In the whole ὁ … Ἰ. Χ. there lies a solemn, sacred emphasi. ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν διʼ ἡμῶν κηρυχθείς] reminds the readers of the first preaching of Christ among them, of which Paul could not but remind them, if they were to become perfectly conscious, from their experience from the beginning, that Christ had not become ναὶ κ. οὔ. But in order to make this first preaching come home to them with the whole personal weight of the preachers, he adds, in just consciousness of the services rendered by himself and his companions as compared with the later workers, a more precise definition of the διʼ ἡμῶν, with more weighty circumstantiality: διʼ ἐμοῦ κ. Σιλουανοῦ κ. Τιμοθέου. For the two latter had been his helpers in his first labours in Corinth. See Acts 18:5. From this it is obvious why he has not named others, as Apollos, but simply these (Calvin thinks, that these had been most calumniated); hence also there is no need to suppose any intention of making his assurance more credible (Chrysostom, Theophylact, and many others). A side glance at the Christ preached by Judaistic opponents (2 Corinthians 11:4) is here quite foreign to the connection (in opposition to Klöpper, p. 86 f.). Σιλουανοῦ] Universally so with Paul (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1); also in 1 Peter 5:12. In the Acts of the Apostles only the shortened name Σιλας appears. Silvanus is here placed before Timothy, because he was an older apostolic helper than the latter. See Acts 15:22 ff. οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ κ. οὔ] He has not become affirmation and negation, has not showed Himself as untrustworthy, as one who affirms and also denies (the fulfilment of the divine promises, 2 Corinthians 1:20), as one who had exhibited such contradiction in himself. This Paul says of Christ Himself, in so far as in the personal objective Christ, by means of His appearance and His whole work, the ναί in reference to the divine promises, the affirmation of their fulfilment, is given as a matter of fact. Wrongly most expositors (comp. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact) understand Χριστός as doctrina de Christo (“our gospel of Christ is not changeable, sometimes one thing, sometimes another, but it remains ever the same”), an interpretation here specially precluded by verses 20 and 21. This may be urged also against the similar interpretation of Hofmann, that, with the very fact that Christ has come to the readers through preaching, there has gone forth a Yea (the affirmation of all divine promises), without any intervention of Nay. Olshausen and Rückert take it rightly of Christ Himself; but the former puts in place of the simple meaning of the word the thought not quite in keeping: “Christ is the absolute truth, affirmation pure and simple; in Him is the real fulfilment of the divine promises; in Him negation is entirely wanting;” and the latter arbitrarily limits ἐγένετο merely to the experience of
- 23. the Corinthians (“amongyou He has not shown Himself untrustworthy”). Paul, however, uses the words οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ κ. οὔ of Christ in general, and by ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν … Τιμοθ. directs the attention of the Corinthians to the recognition of the truth on their part and out of their own experienc. ἀλλὰ ναὶ ἐν αὐτῷ γέγονεν] of the two only the former, i.e. affirmation (that the divine promises are fulfilled and shall be fulfilled) is established in Him: in Christ is actually given the yea, that, etc. In the perfect γέγονεν (different from the previous aorist ἐγένετο) is implied the continuance of what has happened. Comp. on Colossians 1:16; John 1:3. Grotius, in opposition to the context (see 2 Corinthians 1:20), referred ναὶ ἐν αὐτῷ γέγ. to the miracles, by which Christ confirmed the apostolic preaching. And Beza awkwardly, and, on account of 2 Corinthians 1:20, erroneously, took ἐν αὐτῷ of God, whose Son is “constantissima Patris veritas.” 2 Corinthians 1:19-22. Paul furnishes grounds in 2 Corinthians 1:19 f. for the assurance he had given in 2 Corinthians 1:18; then refers his veracity to the stedfastness bestowed on him by God, 2 Corinthians 1:21 f.; and finally, 2 Corinthians 1:23, makes protestations as to the reason why he had not yet come to Corinth. Expositor's Greek TestamentHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-19.htm"2 Corinthians 1:19. He has appealed to the faithfulness of God, and this suggests the thought of the unchangeableness of Christ.—ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ γὰρ υἱὸς κ.τ.λ.: for the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was proclaimed among you by us. The position of τοῦ Θεοῦ before γάρ (as in the true text) brings out the sequence of thought better, as it brings Θεοῦ (the connecting word) into prominence.—διʼ ἐμοῦ καὶ Σιλουανοῦ καὶ Τιμοθέου: even by me and Silvanus and Timothy. These three brought the Gospel to Corinth (Acts 18:5), and were closely associated during the Apostle’s labours in that city (1 Thessalonians 1:1, 2 Thessalonians 1:1). Silvanus is only another form of the name Silas; he was a prophet (Acts 15:32), and apparently, like St. Paul, a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37), and shared the Apostle’s perils during the whole of his second missionary journey (Acts 15:40 to Acts 18:18). We hear of him again at Rome (1 Peter 5:12).—οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ καὶ οὔ, ἀλλὰ ναὶ ἐν αυτῷ γέγονεν: was not Yea and Nay, but in Him is (sc., has been and continues to be) Yea. There is no doubtfulness or vacillation in the words of Christ (Matthew 7:29, John 12:50); and He continually emphasised the positive and certain character of His teaching by the introductory formula Ἀμὴν, ἀμήν. More than this, however, is involved here. Christ, who is the Object and Sum of St. Paul’s preaching, is unchangeable (Hebrews 13:8), for He is not only “true” (Revelation 3:7), but “the Truth” (John 14:6): He is, in brief, ὁ Ἀμήν (Revelation 3:14), and so it may be said that an Eternal “Yea” has come into being (γέγονεν, through His incarnate Life) in Him. Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ] St Paul now labours to impress the Corinthians with the weight of the commission with which he had been entrusted to them. It was nothing less than Jesus, the Promised and Anointed One, the Son of God, Whom he had preached. was preached] Literally, proclaimed, as by a herald. The word has come usually to mean an exposition of God’s Word in the Christian congregation. Silvanus] Called Silas in the Acts. He was sent with Paul and Barnabas, as ‘a chief man among the brethren,’ to guarantee the authenticity of the Apostolic letter which the former brought back
- 24. with them fromJerusalem to Antioch after the discussion recorded in Acts 15, since, had Paul and Barnabas returned alone, their opponents might not improbably have disputed its genuineness. See Acts 15:22; Acts 15:25; Acts 15:27. He was a prophet, Acts 15:32 (see 1 Corinthians 14), and was chosen by St Paul, after his dispute with St Barnabas, as his fellow- traveller, by the advice of the Churches. Some have thought that he was the brother mentioned in ch. 2 Corinthians 8:18, 2 Corinthians 12:18. He is mentioned by St Paul with himself in the opening of each of the Epistles to the Thessalonians. He was with the Apostle at Philippi (Acts 16:19-40), at Thessalonica (Acts 17:1; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:10), at Berea (Acts 17:10), at Corinth (not at Athens, Acts 17:15, Acts 18:5). He is not mentioned again in Scripture save by St Peter in his first Epistle (ch. 2 Corinthians 5:12), in which he speaks of him as one with whom he has little personal acquaintance, but much confidence. Silas is contracted from the fuller form Silvanus as Lucas from Lucanus. The similar signification of the two words Lucas and Silvanus have led some to suppose that St Luke and St Silas were the same person. But a perusal of the narrative in Acts 16, 17, especially Acts 16:4-8; Acts 16:10-17; Acts 16:19-20, will shew that they were two distinct persons. See Alford, Prolegomena to Acts of the Apostles, for a fuller investigation of this point. We may observe that not only does St Paul, in his humility, identify himself with the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 1:14) but he takes care to associate his subordinates with him as fellow labourers in a common work. Paley, Horae Paulinae, remarks on the undesigned coincidence between this verse and Acts 18:5. The two books are not written by the same person. There is no particular stress laid on the fact of Silas and Timotheus having been with the Apostle in either book, but the reference to them slips out quite accidentally. But both declare in this accidental way that Silas and Timotheus were with the Apostle at Corinth. Such minute agreement is beyond the power of the compiler of fictitious narrative. See a fuller discussion of this subject in the Introduction. was not yea and nay, but in him was yea] The Son of God, the subject-matter of the Gospel, was no uncertain conception, sometimes affirmed and sometimes denied. The preaching of Him was the constant affirmation of a truth, an unchangeable blessing vouchsafed in Him to mankind. For ‘in Him was yea;’ the original has the perfect, ‘in Him i.e. in God, 2 Corinthians 1:18) hath been (or become) yea.’ For in Him ‘is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.’ Numbers 23:19; James 1:17. How then could the change of purpose in His minister be ascribed to the capricious infirmity of the mere human will? Cf. also Romans 15:8; Hebrews 13:8. Bengel's GnomenHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-19.htm"2 Corinthians 1:19. Ὁ γὰρ τοῦ Θεοῦ υἱὸς, Ιἠσοῦς Χριστὸς, for the Son of God, Jesus Christ) who is the principal subject of our discourse. We should observe the joining together of the three appellations, thereby showing forth firmness;[7] as also their position in the natural order; for the first is evidently not the same as the third.—καὶ Σιλουανοῦ, and Silvanus) Luke calls him Silas; Acts 15:22 note.—ἀλλὰ ναὶ) but yea pure and unmixed, on our part and yours.—ἐν αὐτῷ, in Himself) Christ preached, i.e. our preaching of Christ became yea in Christ Himself. So the reason assigned [aetiologia, end.] in the following verse is in consonance. All the promises in Christ are yea. Therefore truly also the testimony concerning Christ Himself is yea in Christ. [7] For “union is strength.”—ED. Pulpit CommentaryVerse 19. - For. This is a proof of what he has just said. His preaching was as firm as a rock; for, tried by time, it had proved itself a changeless" yea," being a preaching of Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. By me and Silvanus and Timotheus. They are
- 25. mentioned because theyhad been his companions in the first visit to Corinth (Acts 18:5), and he wishes to show that his preaching of Christ had never wavered. "Silvanus" (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1) is the "Silas" of Acts 15:22. He disappears from the New Testament in this verse, unless he be the "Silvanus" of 1 Peter 5:12. Was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. "Became not (proved not to be) yes and no (in one breath, as it were, and therefore utterly untrustworthy), but in him there has been a yea." The perfect, "has become," means that in him the everlasting" yes" has proved itself valid, and still continues to be a changeless affirmation (Hebrews 13:8). Vincent's Word StudiesWas not (οὐκ ἐγένετο) Rather, did not prove to be, in the result. In Him was yea (ναὶ ἐν αὐτῷ γέγονεν) Lit., yea has come to pass in Him. He has shown Himself absolutely the truth. Compare John 14:6; Revelation 3:7, Revelation 3:14. VERSE 20 Pulpit Commentary Homiletics The Certainty Of Divine Promises 2 Corinthians 1:20 D. Fraser I. ALL THE PROMISES OF GOD. From the first (Genesis 3:15) which points to the Saviour's first coming, to the last (Revelation 22:20) which assures us of his second coming, these are all very good. Their range is vast, their bounty large, their comfort sweet and strong. They bring balm to our wounds, help to our infirmities, rest to our weariness, encouragement to our prayers. They are "exceeding great and precious." Scattered as the promises are over the Bible, they should be searched out and read with an intelligent regard to the time when they were given, the persons to whom they were addressed, and the nature of the dispensation under which they were issued. They are profitable in a general sense as exhibiting the Divine character and mind, and they convey individual comfort to those who, in express terms or by fair inference from the express terms, are indicated in particular promises. These comprehend assurances of (1) temporal welfare; (2) Free pardon; (3) a renewed and obedient heart; (4) the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; (5) the return of the Lord and our gathering to him in his glory. These are the keys to open all doors in the dungeons of Doubting Castle and set captives free. These are the strong withes that bind the holiest affections of men, or the cords and bands let down from above, which they hold as they skirt the precipices of moral danger and climb the
- 26. steep places ofduty. These are the stepping stones across waters of despondency, on which pilgrims may pass dry shod to the happy shore. II. THE SECURITY OF ALL THOSE PROMISES IS IN JESUS CHRIST. No Divine promises are made to us out of Christ, and no promise in him can fail. This arises from: 1. The constitution of his mediatorial Person. He is very God and very man: God who is true and cannot lie, in union with a guileless Man who had no deceit in his mouth. 2. The nature of his mediatorial offices. As he is the Prophet, all the promises of Divine teaching and enlightenment are secure in him. As he is the Priest, all the promises of pardon, of acceptance in worship, and of salvation to the uttermost are secure in him. As he is the King, all the promises of the subdual of sin and of deliverance from spiritual adversaries are secure in him. 3. The covenant relations of Christ to his people. They are so comprehended in him or represented by him that all the promises made to him are for their help and consolation, and all the promises made to them are for his glory. So are they assured of pardon through him, eternal life in him, the Holy Spirit of him and by him, and the new heavens and new earth with him who is the Amen, faithful and true. III. THE END IN VIEW IN THE SURENESS or THE PROMISES. "For glory to God through us." It is glorifying to him that we go to the promises for solace and live on the promises by faith. It was when Abraham believed a promise, and was strengthened in faith, that he gave glory to God. And this way of glorifying our God is open to all of us. Let us not stagger at his promises, but believe his love and rely on his faithfulness, He cannot deny himself. Glory be to the Father, who promises to be a Father to us, and to take us for his sons and daughters! Glory be to the Son, in whom all things are ours by free grace, and God himself is not ashamed to be called our God! Glory be to the Holy Ghost, for the anointing, the sealing, and the earnest in our hearts (vers. 21, 22)! The promises of God being established in Christ, we too who believe are established in Christ by the Holy Spirit, and so the promises are ours. What will you do who have no hold of the promises, no hearty faith in the Divine Promiser? For you there is no bright future; for the inheritance is by promise of free grace in Christ Jesus. Yet we do not ask you to believe a promise. Strictly speaking, there is no promise to men who are not in Christ. But Christ himself is set before you and offered to you. Believe on the Name of the only begotten Son of God, according to the tenor of the gospel. Then all things will be yours. The promises of grace and glory are for you; for they are all yea and amen in Jesus Christ our Lord. - F. Biblical Illustrator For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. 2 Corinthians 1:20
- 27. All the promisesI.THE DIGNITY OF THE PROMISES. They are "the promises of God." 1. They were each one made by Him according to the purpose of His own will. 2. They are links between His decrees and His acts; being the voice of the decree, and the herald of the act. 3. They display the qualities of Him who uttered them. They are true, immutable, powerful, eternal, etc. 4. They remain in union with God. After the lapse of ages they are still His promises as much as when He first uttered them. 5. They are guaranteed by the character of God who spoke them. 6. They will glorify Him as He works out their fulfilment. II. THE RANGE OF THE PROMISES. "All the promises." It will be instructive to note the breadth of the promises by observing that — 1. They are found both in the Old and New Testaments; from Genesis to Revelation, running through centuries of time. 2. They are of both sorts-conditional and unconditional: promises to certain works, and promises of an absolute order. 3. They are of all kinds of things — bodily and spiritual, personal and general, eternal and temporal. 4. They continue blessings to varied characters, such as —(1) The Penitent (Leviticus 26:40-42; Isaiah 4:7; 57:15; Jeremiah 3:12, 13).(2) The Believing (John 3:16, 18; John 6:47; Acts 16:31; 1 Peter 2:6).(3) The Serving (Psalm 37:3; 9:40; Proverbs 3:9, 10; Acts 10:35).(4) The Praying (Isaiah 14:11.; Lamentations 3:25; Matthew 6:6; Psalm 145:18).(5) The Obeying (Exodus 19:5; Psalm 119:1-3; Isaiah 1:19).(6) The Suffering (Matthew 5:10-12; Romans 8:17; 1 Peter 4:12-14). 5. They bring us the richest boons: pardon, justification, sanctification, instruction, preservation, etc. What a marvellous wealth lies in "all the promises"! III. THE STABILITY OF THE PROMISES. "All the promises in Him are yea, and in Him Amen." A Greek word "Yea," and a Hebrew word "Amen," are used to mark certainty, both to Gentile and Jew. 1. They are established beyond all doubt as being assuredly the mind and purpose of the eternal God. 2. They are confirmed beyond all alteration. The Lord hath said "Amen," and so must it be for ever. 3. Their stability is in Christ Jesus beyond all hazard; for He is (1)The witness of the promise of God. (2)The surety of the covenant. (3)The sum and substance of all the promises. (4)The fulfilment of the promises, by His actual incarnation, His atoning death, His living plea, His ascension power, etc. (5)The security and guarantee of the promises, since all power is in His hand to fulfil them.
- 28. IV. THE RESULTOF THE PROMISES. "The glory of God by us." By us, His ministers, and His believing people, the God of the promises is made glorious. We glorify — 1. His condescending love in making the promise. 2. His power as we see Him keeping the promise. 3. Him by our faith, which honours His veracity, by expecting the boons which He has promised. 4. Him in our experience which proves the promise true.Conclusion: 1. Let us confidently rest in His sure word. 2. Let us plead the special promise applicable to the hour now passing. (C. H. Spurgeon.) The promises H. W. Beecher.1. A promise is the antithesis of a threat. The Bible abounds in both. 2. When God more apparently guided the courses of man personally, promises were made to individual men. To patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; and by such they were upborne through trial. But when this became impossible the promises were made applicable to whole nations and generations. 3. Thus the Word of God is filled with assurances of blessings as no other book is. Promises cover the whole period of human life. They meet us at our birth; they cluster about our childhood; they overhang our youth; they go in companies into manhood with us; they divide themselves into bands and stand at the door of every possible experience. Therefore there are promises of God to the ignorant, poor, oppressed, discouraged, etc.; to every affection, to every sphere of duty, to all perils and temptations. There are promises for joy, sorrow, victory, defeat, adversity, prosperity, etc. Old age has its garlands as full and fragrant as youth. All men, everywhere, and always — have their promises of God. 4. They belong to mankind. There have been periods when, for special and beneficent reasons, God's promises seemed to belong only to His own people. 5. And they are fresh with everlasting youth. The stars never wear out; the sun is not weary from the number of years. The heaven and the earth, however, shall pass away, but God's word shall not pass away. 6. Not one promise has ever been unfulfilled. There is not a witness in God's universe that can testify that he has leaned on a promise of God, and that God forgot to be gracious to him. I. WHAT ARE THE USES TO WHICH WE ARE INVITED TO PUT GOD'S PROMISES? 1. To make rude duties more attractive. It is affecting to see with what tenderness God has taken care of those that no one else cares for. How He goes down to the poor, and the ignorant, and the enslaved. How He goes down to those that can find no motive for right living in their ordinary experience, and says to them, "Be faithful, if not for the sake of your master, then for My sake." And once let us know that We are serving One that we love, and One that loves us, and love vanquishes difficulty. 2. To fortify our faith. Duty is often surrounded by peril or hardship, and is often apparently without adequate result. It is needful, therefore, that there should be some promise which shall assure us that a perilous duty well performed will bring down upon us the Divine blessing. You
- 29. are oftentimes broughtinto trials when it seems as though everything would be wrecked, and the world says, "Prudence": experience says, "Draw back"; policy says, "Change a little"; and expediency says, "Compromise"; but the Word of God, which is yea and amen, says, "He that will lose his life for a right principle shall save it." And in the end, when you come to count the wrecks along the shore, you will find those men who would save their lives by losing their principles are the men that have lost their lives. 3. To equalise the conditions of life. Men are of different calibre, and, owing to this, men follow Christ in different ways. Now, if a party of men are going to California assured that each shall be the possessor, in five years, of one million dollars, the differences between them are annihilated while they are going across. One may have twenty-five dollars in his pocket, another a hundred; one may have almost no conveniences, and another all that heart could wish; and yet, if they are assured that in five years they shall each have a million dollars, they do not care for these inequalities. And let the promises of God rest on the poor man's lot, and he forgets the inequalities of life. For that man who is ere long to be crowned in eternity cannot find the road there so hard that he will complain of it. 4. To redeem secular life from barrenness, and make it worth our while to continue faithful to the end. And while there are promises of God that run through our whole lower life, the promises grow broader and deeper as you go up to those spheres where a man is obliged to live by faith, and above the ordinary affairs of life. So the promises of God are in proportion to our exigencies. II. WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF USING THE PROMISES OF GOD? 1. We are ignorant of them. There is many a man that lives on his farm years and years without knowing the different growths that it produces. Many a man is buried within a yard of plants that, if their healing properties had been known, would have saved his life. Many a field is capable, if properly tilled, of producing fourfold as much as it is made to produce. God's Word is like such a field. There are promises in it that no man has ever tried to find. There are treasures of gold and silver in it that no man has taken the pains to dig for. There are medicines in it, for the want of a knowledge of which hundreds have died. 2. When men find them they do not know how to use them. Tea was first served in England as greens. The people rejected it, and thought it rather an imposition. When potatoes were first introduced into Ireland they were rejected there, because they did not know how to use them. And many and many a man rejects, or fails to profit by, the promises of God's Word, because he does not know how to gather them, and cook them, and use them. 3. We are afraid to venture upon using them. There is many and many a man that would be afraid to trust himself upon a single plank stretched across a deep chasm, though others had walked over on it often without accident. There is many a promise of God that is strong enough to carry men across the abyss of this life, but they do not dare to try it. In an emergency the promises of God are to many men what weapons of defence are to a man who does not know how to use them when he finds that he must fight for his life. 4. We wish the result without the fulfilment of the conditions attached. Many a child that is promised a vacation on condition that he will perform a certain amount of labour, would like the vacation, but does not like the condition on which it is promised. So many of the things promised we would like to steal, instead of working for them. 5. We do not appropriate them. The promise of "grace to help in time of need" comes to men thousands of times without benefiting them for this very reason. Many carry the promises as a
- 30. miser carries bankbills, the face of which calls for countless treasures, but which he does not carry to the bank for presentation. Many a man holds bills for blessings of God, but does not present them. They enter upon a philosophical inquiry as to whether there is a presumptive argument in favour of prayer, and whether God will stop the laws of nature for our benefit, or so use them as to fulfil His promises to us. But the way to employ a promise of God is to comply with its conditions, and then wait for its fulfilment. 6. Many are afraid of presumption. Well, it may be presumptuous for you to go into a stranger's house without an invitation; but if a man has invited you to come and see him it is presumptuous for you not to take him at his word. And to be afraid to appropriate the promises of God is to charge Him falsely. 7. Many would like to take the promises of God, but they fear they may be self-deceived. You may be, but God is not; and therefore you may rest upon the promises. 8. There are others that have a fear about their own unworthiness; which is as if a man should advertise that he would cure the infirmities of men free of expense, and a blind man should say, "I would go to this physician if I were not so blind." Therefore plead the promises because you are sinful; the nature of goodness is to relieve want, even though that want be founded on sin. 9. Much of the want of faith in the promises comes from a neglect on the part of Christians to bear witness to the fulfilment of those promises in their own experience. There are hundreds of men whose life God has made significant and memorable, and they have never uttered a word about it to those around them. (H. W. Beecher.) The promises, how they become ours W. Jay.I. "BY US" AS MINISTERS — publishing, explaining, applying them. A promise is often like a box of ointment, very precious; but the fragrance does not fill the room till the preacher breaks it. Or it is like the water that was near Hagar, which she saw not till God opened her eyes and showed her the well. II. "BY US" AS RELIEVERS REALISING THE EXCELLENCY AND EFFICACY OF THEM IN OUR CHARACTER AND CONDUCT. It is when these promises are reduced to experience — when they are seen cleansing us from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, making us partakers of the Divine nature, leading us to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, filling us with kindness and supporting us in trials — it is then they glorify God by us. (W. Jay.) The promises of God Jonathan Crowther.Note — I. THAT THEY ARE THE PROMISES OF GOD. Because they are His promises they are utterly incapable of any failure. "God is not a man that He should lie," etc. In our presumptuous readiness to liken the Almighty to ourselves, we may imagine instances in which Divine promises have failed to be accomplished. But — 1. There may have been an incorrect apprehension as to the subject of the promise; and in the error cherished thereupon, something has been imagined and expected which has not been promised. The Jews misapprehended the meaning of prophecies concerning the Messiah.
- 31. 2. There mayhave been some mistake or negligence on our part as to the condition on which the promise was suspended, and the circumstances under which it became actually due. 3. The time for its accomplishment may not be fully come. For the promises of God, though sure, are not in every instance designed for immediate fulfilment. II. THE TRUTH AND FAITHFULNESS OF THESE PROMISES AS RESULTING FROM THEIR CONNECTION WITH CHRIST. They are "in Him yea, and in Him Amen," as He is the great foundation of the promises. God sees in Him, as our once suffering but now exalted Mediator, an unchangeable and everlasting reason why all His other promises should be fulfilled. III. THEY ARE "TO THE GLORY OF GOD BY US." 1. In the very circumstance of their original annunciation. 2. As they constitute a new and separate manifestation of His own character and attributes. 3. As in that very act of faith by which those promises are accepted and become available, God is glorified in that particular, in reference to which His glory was, in the first instance of man's sin, insulted and invaded. 4. In the accomplishment of the promises. 5. As furnishing, to all who may be interested in it, an additional encouragement to exercise that faith, by means of which the God of the promises is glorified, and the result of which must be the reiterated accomplishment of the same promise.Conclusion: Learn — 1. The true character of unbelief. It is — (1)Unreasonable. (2)Wicked. 2. The means by which alone the soul can rise to the exercise of that faith in the promises which is required as the condition of their accomplishment, and that it is only when, and in proportion as, we view them in their connection with Christ, that we can so believe them as to receive experimentally and savingly the benefit and comfort of them. (Jonathan Crowther.) All God's promises Yea in Christ J. Denney, B. D.God's promises are His declarations of what He is willing to do for men, and in the very nature of the case they are at once the limit and inspiration of our prayers. We are encouraged to ask all that God promises, and we must stop there. Christ Himself, then, is the measure of prayer to man; we can ask all that is in Him; we dare not ask anything that lies outside Him. How this should expand our prayers in some directions, and contract them in others! We can ask God to give us Christ's purity, simplicity, meekness, and gentleness, faithfulness and obedience, victory over the world. Have we ever measured these things? Have we ever put them into our prayers with any glimmering consciousness of their dimensions, any sense of the vastness of our request? Nay, we can ask Christ's glory, His resurrection life of splendour and incorruption — the image of the heavenly, God has promised us all of these things, and far more; but has He promised all that we ask? Can we fix our eyes on His Son, as He lived our life in this world, and remembering that this, so far as this world is concerned, is the measure of promise, ask without any qualification that our course here may be free from every trouble? Had Christ no sorrow? Did He never meet with ingratitude? Was He never
- 32. misunderstood? Was Henever hungry, thirsty, weary? If all God's promises are summed up in Him — if He is everything God has to give — can we go boldly to the throne of grace, and pray to be exempted from what He had to bear, or to be richly provided with indulgencies which He never knew? What if all unanswered prayers might be defined as prayers for things not included in the promises — prayers that we might get what God did not get, or be spared from what He was not spared? The spirit of this passage, however, does not urge so much the definiteness as the compass and the certainty of the promises of God. There are "so many" that Paul could never enumerate them, and all of them are sure in Christ. And when our eyes are once opened on Him, does not He Himself become, as it were, inevitably the substance of our prayers? Is not our whole heart's desire, Oh, that I might win Him! Oh, that He might live in me, and make me what He is! Do we not feel that if God would give us His Son, all would be ours that we could take or He could give. (J. Denney, B. D.) God's certainties and man's certitudes A. Maclaren, D. D."Yea" and "amen" are in the A.V. nearly synonymous, and point substantially to the same thing — viz., that Christ is, as it were, the confirmation and seal of God's promises. But the R.V. indicates two different things by the "yea" and the "amen." The one is God's voice, the other is man's. When we listen to God speaking in Christ, our lips are, through Christ, opened to shout our assenting "Amen" to His great promises, Consider — I. GOD'S CERTAINTIES IN CHRIST. Of course the original reference is to the great promises given in the O.T.; but the principle is good on a wider field. In Christ — 1. There is the certainty about God's heart. Everywhere else we have hopes, fears, guesses, inferences. Nothing will make us sure here but facts. We want to see love in operation if we arc to be sure of it, and the only demonstration of the love of God is to witness it in actual working. And you get it where? On the Cross. "Herein is love, not that we loved God," etc. 2. In Him we have the certainty of pardon. Every deep heart-experience has felt the necessity of having clear knowledge about this. And the only message which answers to the needs of an awakened conscience is the old-fashioned message that Jesus Christ the Righteous has died for us sinful men. All other religions have felt after a clear doctrine of forgiveness, and all have failed to find it. Here is the Divine "Yea!" And on it alone we can suspend the whole weight of our soul's salvation. 3. We have in Christ Divine certainties in regard of life. We have in Him the absolutely perfect pattern to which we are to conform our whole doings. He stands the Law of our lives. We have certainties for life, in the matter of protection, guidance, supply of all necessity, and the like, garnered in Jesus Christ. For He not only conforms, but fulfils, the promises which God has made. Christ is protean, and becomes everything to each man that each man requires. And in some of those sunny islands of the Southern Pacific one tree supplies the people with all that they need for their simple wants, fruit for their food, leaves for their houses, staves, thread, needles, clothing, drink, everything — so Jesus Christ, this Tree of Life, is Himself the sum of all the promises, and, having Him, we have everything that we need. 4. In Christ we have the Divine certainties as to the future, over which, apart from Him, lie cloud and darkness. Here again a verbal revelation is not "enough. We have enough of man's peradventures. What we want is that somebody shall cross the gulf and come back again. And so
- 33. we get inthe Resurrection of Christ the one fact on which men may safely rest their convictions of immortality. II. MAN'S CERTAINTIES, WHICH ANSWER TO CHRIST'S CERTAINTIES. The latter are in Christ, the former are through Christ. The only fitting attitude for Christians in reference to these certainties is that of unhesitating affirmation and joyful assent. 1. There should be some kind of correspondence between the assurance with which we believe these great truths, and the firmness of the evidence upon which they rest. It is a poor compliment to God to come to His affirmations, and to answer with a hesitating "Amen." Build rock upon rock. Be certain of the certain things; for it is an insult to the certainty of the revelation when there is hesitation in the believer. The Christian verb is "we know," not "we hope, we calculate, we infer, we think," but "we know." 2. I need not speak about the blessedness of such a calm assurance, about the need of it for power, for peace, for effort, for fixedness in the midst of a world and age of change. But I must point to the only path by which that certitude is attainable. "Through Him is the amen." He is the Door. The truths which He confirms are so inextricably intertwined with Himself that you cannot get them and put away Him. Christ's relation to Christ's gospel is not the relation of other teachers to their words. You may accept the words of a Plato, whatever you think of Plato. But you cannot separate Christ and His teaching in that fashion, and you must have Him if you are to get it. 3. If thus we keep near Him our faith will bring us the present experience and fulfilment of the promises, and we shall be sure of them because we have them already. And whilst men are asking, "Do we know anything about God? Is there such a thing as forgiveness?" etc., we can say, "One thing I know, Jesus Christ is my Saviour, and in Him I know God, and pardon, and duty, and sanctifying, and safety, and immortality; and whatever is dark, this, at least, is sun- clear." Get high enough up and you will be above the fog; and while the men down in it are squabbling as to whether there is anything outside the mist, you, from your sunny station, will see the far-off coasts, and haply catch some whiff of perfume from their shore, and see some glinting of a glory upon the shining turrets of "the city that hath foundations." So live near Jesus Christ, and, holding fast by His hand, you may lift up your joyful "Amen" to every one of God's "yeas"; and when the Voice from Heaven says "Yea!" our choral shout may go up, "Amen! Thou art the faithful and true witness." (A. Maclaren, D. D.) COMMENTARIES Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(20) All the promises of God . . .—Literally, as many as are the promises of God. Many of the better MSS. give a different reading: “In him is the Yea, wherefore also by him is the Amen to God for glory by our means.” The thought in either case is the same. The promises of God have been fulfilled and ratified in Christ. He was, as it were, a living incarnate “Amen” to those promises. Comp. St. John’s use of the word Amen as a name of
- 34. Christ, the “faithfuland true witness” (Revelation 3:14). The words “by us” are determined by the context as referring to the preacher rather than to the hearers of the Word. MacLaren's Expositions2 Corinthians GOD’S YEA; MAN’S AMEN 2 Corinthians 1:20. This is one of the many passages the force and beauty of which are, for the first time, brought within the reach of an English reader by the alterations in the Revised Version. These are partly dependent upon the reading of the text and partly upon the translation. As the words stand in the Authorised Version, ‘yea’ and ‘amen’ seem to be very nearly synonymous expressions, and to point substantially to the same thing-viz. that Jesus Christ is, as it were, the confirmation and seal of God’s promises. But in the Revised Version the alterations, especially in the pronouns, indicate more distinctly that the Apostle means two different things by the ‘yea’ and the ‘amen’ . The one is God’s voice, the other is man’s. The one has to do with the certainty of the divine revelation, the other has to do with the certitude of our faith in the revelation. When God speaks in Christ, He confirms everything that He has said before, and when we listen to God speaking in Christ, our lips are, through Christ, opened to utter our assenting ‘Amen’ to His great promises. So, then, we have the double form of our Lord’s work, covering the whole ground of His relations to man, set forth in these two clauses, in the one of which God’s confirmation of His past revelations by Jesus Christ is treated of, and in the other of which the full and confident assent which men may give to that revelation is set before us. I deal, then, with these two points- God’s certainties in Christ, and man’s certitudes through Christ. Now these two things do not always go together. We may be very certain, as far as our persuasion is concerned, of a very doubtful fact, or we may be very doubtful, as far as our persuasion is concerned, of a very certain fact. We speak about truths or facts as being certain, and we ought to mean by that, not how we think about them, but what they are in the evidence on which they rest. A certain truth is a truth which has its evidence irrefragable; and the only fitting attitude for men, in the presence of a certain truth, is to have a certitude of the truth. And these two things are, our Apostle tells us, both given to us in and through Jesus Christ. Let me deal, then, with these two sides. I. First, God’s certainties in Christ. Of course the original reference of the text is to the whole series of great promises given in the Old Testament. These, says Paul, are sealed and confirmed to men by the revelation and work of Jesus Christ, but it is obvious that the principle which is good in reference to them is good on a wider field. I venture to take that extension, and to ask you to think briefly about some of the things that are made for us indubitably certain in Jesus Christ. And, first of all, there is the certainty about God’s heart. Everywhere else we have only peradventures, hopes, fears, guesses more or less doubtful, and roundabout inferences as to His disposition and attitude towards us. As one of the old divines says somewhere, ‘All other ways of knowing God are like the bended bow, Christ is the straight string.’ The only means by which,
- 35. indubitably, as amatter of demonstration, men can be sure that God in the heavens has a heart of love towards them is by Jesus Christ. For consider what will make us sure of that. Nothing but facts; words are of little use, arguments are of little use. A revelation, however precious, which simply says to us, ‘God is Love’ is not sufficient for our need. We want to see love in operation if we are to be sure of it, and the only demonstration of the love of God is to witness the love of God in actual working. And you get it-where? On the Cross of Jesus Christ. I do not believe that anything else irrefragably establishes the fact for the yearning hearts of us poor men who want love, and yet cannot grope our way in amidst the mysteries and the clouds in providence and nature, except this-’Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’ The question may arise in some minds, Is there any need for proving God’s love? The question never arose except within the limits of Christianity. It is only men who have lived all their lives in an atmosphere saturated by Christian sentiment and conviction that ever come to the point of saying, ‘We do not want historical revelation to prove to us the fact of a loving God.’ They would never have fancied that they did not need the revelation unless, unconsciously to themselves, and indirectly, all their thoughts had been coloured and illuminated by the revelation that they profess they reject. God as Love is ‘our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt,’ and the only way to make absolutely certain of the fact that His heart is full of mercy to us is to look upon Him as He stands revealed to us, not merely in the words of Christ, for, precious as they are, these are the smallest part of His revelation, but in the life and in the death which open for us the heart of God. Remember what He said Himself, not ‘He who hath listened to Me, doth understand the Father,’ but ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’ ‘In Him is yea,’ and the hopes and shadowy fore-revelations of the loving heart of God are confirmed by the fact of His life and death. God establishes, not ‘commends’ as our translation has it, ‘His love towards us in that whilst we were yet sinners Christ died for us.’ Further, in Him we have the certainty of pardon. Every deep heart-experience amongst men has felt the necessity of having a clear certainty and knowledge about forgiveness. Men do not feel it always. A man can skate over the surface of the great deeps that lie beneath the most frivolous life, and may suppose, in his superficial way of looking at things, that there is no need for any definite teaching about sin and the mode of dealing with it. But once bring that man face to face, in a quiet hour, with the facts of his life and of a divine law, and all that superficial ignoring of evil in himself and of the dread of punishment and consequences, passes away. I am sure of this, that no religion will ever go far and last long and work mightily, and lay a sovereign hand upon human life, which has not a most plain and decisive message to preach in reference to pardon. And I am sure of this, that one reason for the comparative feebleness of much so-called Christian teaching in this generation is just that the deepest needs of a man’s conscience are not met by it. In a religion on which the whole spirit of a man may rest itself, there must be a very plain message about what is to be done with sin. The only message which answers to the needs of an awakened conscience and an alarmed heart is the old-fashioned message that Jesus Christ the Righteous has died for us sinful men. All other religions have felt after a clear doctrine of forgiveness, and all have failed to find it. Here is the divine ‘Yea!’ And on it alone we can suspend the whole weight of our soul’s salvation. The rope that is to haul us out of the horrible pit and the miry clay had much need to be tested before we commit ourselves to it. There are plenty of easygoing superficial theories about forgiveness predominant in the world to-day.
- 36. Except the onethat says, ‘In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sin,’ they are all like the rope let down into the dark mine to lift the captives beneath, half of the strands of which have been cut on the sharp edge above, and when the weight hangs on to it, it will snap. There is nothing on which a man who has once learned the tragical meaning and awful reality and depth of the fact of his transgression can suspend his forgiveness, except this, that ‘Christ has died, the just for the unjust, to bring us unto God.’ ‘In Him the promise is yea.’ And, again, we have in Christ divine certainties in regard to life. We have in Him the absolutely perfect pattern to which we are to conform our whole doings. And so, notwithstanding that there may, and will still be many uncertainties and much perplexity, we have the great broad lines of morals and of duty traced with a firm hand, and all that we need to know of obligation and of perfectness lies in this-Be like Jesus Christ! So the solemn commandments of the ethical side of Divine Revelation, as well as the promises of it, get their ‘yea’ in Jesus Christ, and He stands the Law of our lives. We have certainties for life, in the matter of protection, guidance, supply of all necessity, and the like, treasured and garnered in Jesus Christ. For He not only confirms, but fulfils, the promises which God has made. If we have that dear Lord for our very own, and He belongs to us as He does belong to them who love Him and trust Him, then in Him we have in actual possession these promises, how many soever they be, which are given by God’s other words. Christ is Protean, and becomes everything to each man that each man requires. He is, as it were, ‘a box where sweets compacted lie.’ ‘In Him are hid all the treasures,’ not only of wisdom and knowledge, but of divine gifts, and we have but to go to Him in order to have that which at each moment as it emerges, we most require. As in some of those sunny islands of the Southern Pacific, one tree supplies the people with all that they need for their simple wants, fruit for their food, leaves for their houses, staves, thread, needles, clothing, drink, everything-so Jesus Christ, this Tree of Life, is Himself the sum of all the promises, and, having Him, we have everything that we need. And, lastly, in Christ we have the divine certainties as to the Future over which, apart from Him, lie cloud and darkness. As I said about the revelation of the heart of God, so I say about the revelation of a future life-a verbal revelation is not enough. We have enough of arguments; what we want is facts. We have enough of man’s peradventures about a future life, enough of evidence more or less valid to show that it is ‘probable,’ or ‘not inconceivable,’ or ‘more likely than not,’ and so on and so on. What we want is that somebody shall cross the gulf and come back again, and so we get in the Resurrection of Christ the one fact on which men may safely rest their convictions of immortality, and I do not think that there is a second anywhere. On it alone, as I believe, hinges the whole answer to the question-’If a man die, shall he live again?’ This generation is brought, in my reading of it, right up to this alternative-Christ’s Resurrection,-or we die like the brutes that perish. ‘All the promises of God in Him are yea.’ II. And now a word as to the second portion of my text-viz. man’s certitudes, which answer to God’s certainties. The latter are in Christ, the former are through Christ. Now it is clear that the only fitting attitude
- 37. for professing Christiansin reference to these certainties of God is the attitude of unhesitating affirmation and joyful assent. Certitude is the fitting response to certainty. There should be some kind of correspondence between the firmness with which we grasp, the tenacity with which we hold, the assurance with which we believe, these great truths, and the rock-like firmness and immovableness of the evidence upon which they rest. It is a poor compliment to God to come to His most veracious affirmations, sealed with the broad seal of His Son’s life and death, and to answer with a hesitating ‘Amen,’ that falters and almost sticks in our throat. Build rock upon rock. Be sure of the certain things. Grasp with a firm hand the firm stay. Immovably cling to the immovable foundation; and though you be but like the limpet on the rock hold fast by the Rock, as the limpet does; for it is an insult to the certainty of the revelation, when there is hesitation in the believer. I need not dwell for more than a moment upon the lamentable contrast which is presented between this certitude, which is our only fitting attitude, and the hesitating assent and half belief in which so many professing Christians pass their lives. The reasons for that are partly moral, partly intellectual. This is not a day which is favourable to the unhesitating avowal of convictions in reference to an unseen world, and many of us are afraid of being called narrow, or dogmatisers, and think it looks like breadth, and liberality, and culture, and I know not what, to say ‘Well! perhaps it is, but I am not quite sure; I think it is, but I will not commit myself.’ All the promises of God, which in Him are yea, ought through Him to get from us an ‘Amen.’ There is a great deal that will always be uncertain. The firmer our convictions, the fewer will be the things that they grasp; but, if they be few, they will be large, and enough for us. These truths certified in Christ concerning the heart of God, the message of pardon, the law for life, the gifts of guidance, defence, and sanctifying, the sure and certain hope of immortality-these things we ought to be sure about, whatever borderland of uncertainty may lie beyond them. The Christian verb is ‘we know,’ not ‘we hope, we calculate, we infer, we think,’ but ‘we know.’ And it becomes us to apprehend for ourselves the full blessedness and power of the certitude which Christ has given to us by the certainties which he has brought us. I need not speak about the blessedness of such a calm assurance, about the need of it for power, for peace, for effort, for fixedness in the midst of a world and age of change. But I must, before I close, point you to the only path by which that certitude is attainable. ‘Through Him is the amen.’ He is the Door. The truths which He confirms are so inextricably intertwined with Himself that you cannot get them and put away Him. Christ’s relation to Christ’s Gospel is not the relation of other teachers to their words. You may accept the words of a Plato, whatever you think of the Plato who spoke the words. But you cannot separate Christ and His teaching in that fashion, and you must have Him if you are to get it. So, faith in Him, the intellectual acceptance of Him, as the authoritative and infallible Revealer, the bowing down of heart and will to Him as our Commander and our Lord, the absolute trust in Him as the foundation of all our hope and the source of all our blessedness-that is the way to certitude, and there is no other road that we can take. If thus we keep near Him, our faith will bring us the present experience and fulfilment of the promises, and we shall be sure of them, because we have them already. And whilst men are
- 38. asking, ‘Do weknow anything about God? Is there a God at all? Is there such a thing as forgiveness? Can anybody find anywhere absolute rules for his life? Is there anything beyond the grave but mist and darkness?’ we can say, ‘One thing I know, Jesus Christ is my Saviour, and in Him I know God, and pardon, and duty, and sanctifying, and safety, and immortality; and whatever is dark, this, at least, is sun-clear.’ Get high enough up and you will be above the fog; and while the men down in it are squabbling as to whether there is anything outside the mist, you, from your sunny station, will see the far-off coasts, and haply catch some whiff of perfume from their shore, and see some glinting of a glory upon the shining turrets of ‘the city that hath foundations.’ We have a present possession of all the promises of God; and whoever doubts their certitude, the man who knows himself a son of God by faith, and has experience of forgiveness and guidance and answered prayer and hopes whose ‘sweetness yieldeth proof that they were born for immortality,’ knows the things which others question and doubt. So live near Jesus Christ, and, holding fast by His hand, you may lift up your joyful ‘Amen’ to every one of God’s ‘Yeas.’ For in Him we know the Father, in Him we know that we have the forgiveness of sins, in Him we know that God is near to bless and succour and guide, and in Him ‘we know that, though our earthly house were dissolved, we have a building of God.’ Wherefore we are always confident; and when the Voice from Heaven says ‘Yea!’ our choral shout may go up ‘Amen! Thou art the faithful and true witness.’ Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary1:15-24 The apostle clears himself from the charge of levity and inconstancy, in not coming to Corinth. Good men should be careful to keep the reputation of sincerity and constancy; they should not resolve, but on careful thought; and they will not change unless for weighty reasons. Nothing can render God's promises more certain: his giving them through Christ, assures us they are his promises; as the wonders God wrought in the life, resurrection, and ascension of his Son, confirm faith. The Holy Spirit makes Christians firm in the faith of the gospel: the quickening of the Spirit is an earnest of everlasting life; and the comforts of the Spirit are an earnest of everlasting joy. The apostle desired to spare the blame he feared would be unavoidable, if he had gone to Corinth before he learned what effect his former letter produced. Our strength and ability are owing to faith; and our comfort and joy must flow from faith. The holy tempers and gracious fruits which attend faith, secure from delusion in so important a matter. Barnes' Notes on the BibleFor all the promises of God in him - All the promises which God has made through him. This is another reason why Paul felt himself bound to maintain a character of the strictest veracity. The reason was, that God always evinced that; and that since none of His promises failed, he felt himself sacredly bound to imitate Him, and to adhere to all His. The promises of God which are made through Christ, relate to the pardon of sin to the penitent; the sanctification of his people: support in temptation and trial; guidance in perplexity; peace in death, and eternal glory beyond the grave. All of these are made through a Redeemer, and none of these shall fail. Are yea - Shall all be certainly fulfilled. There shall be no vacillation on the part of God; no fickleness; no abandoning of his gracious intention. And in him amen - In Revelation 3:14, the Lord Jesus is called the "Amen." The word means true, faithful, certain. And the expression here means that all the promises which are made to people through a Redeemer shall be certainly fulfilled. They are promises which are confirmed and established, and which shall by no means fail.
- 39. Unto the gloryof God by us - Either by us ministers and apostles; or by us who are Christians. The latter, I think, is the meaning; and Paul means to say, that the fulfillment of all the promises which God has made to His people shall result in His glory and praise as a God of condescension and veracity. The fact that He has made such promises is an act that tends to His own glory - since it was of His mere grace that they were made; and the fulfillment of these promises in and through the church, shall also tend to produce elevated views of His fidelity and goodness. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary20. Rather, How many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the "yea" ("faithfulness in His word": contrasted with the "yea and nay," 2Co 1:19, that is, inconstancy as to one's word). and in him Amen—The oldest manuscripts read, "Wherefore through Him is the Amen"; that is, In Him is faithfulness ("yea") to His word, "wherefore through Him" is the immutable verification of it ("Amen"). As "yea" is His word, so "Amen" is His oath, which makes our assurance of the fulfilment doubly sure. Compare "two immutable things (namely, His word and His oath) in which it was impossible for God to lie" (Heb 6:18; Re 3:14). The whole range of Old Testament and New Testament promises are secure in their fulfilment for us in Christ. unto the glory of God by us—Greek, "for glory unto God by us" (compare 2Co 4:15), that is, by our ministerial labors; by us His promises, and His unchangeable faithfulness to them, are proclaimed. Conybeare takes the "Amen" to be the Amen at the close of thanksgiving: but then "by us" would have to mean what it cannot mean here, "by us and you." Matthew Poole's Commentary As Christ was yea, and all his doctrine certain and uniform, so all the promises of God are yea; the promises of the Messiah have their yea and Amen in him; all the promises of grace, whatsoever is promised to believers, shall be verified by him, that so God may be glorified, and have from men the honour of being always esteemed a true and faithful God, one that cannot fail and falsify his word. But how are the promises of God yea and Amen in Christ by us? Answer. As the ministers of the gospel are the ministers of Christ for the explication and application of them. The promises are from the Father, through Christ as the meritorious cause, and internally applied by the Holy Spirit, while they are more externally applied by the ministers of the gospel. Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleFor all the promises of God in him are yea,.... This is a reason or argument proving what is before said, that "in" Christ "was yea", since "all the promises of God in him are yea"; and shows, that God has made many promises to his people: mention is here made of "promises", and of "all" the promises; or, as the words may be rendered, "as many promises of God". There are some which concern the temporal good of the saints; as that they shall not want any good thing; and though they shall be attended with afflictions, these shall work for their good, and they shall be supported under them. Others concern their spiritual good; some of which relate to God himself, that he will be their God, which includes his everlasting love, his gracious presence, and divine protection. Others relate to Christ as their surety and Saviour, by whom they are, and shall be justified and pardoned, in whom they are adopted, and by whom they shall be saved with an everlasting salvation: and others relate to the Spirit of God, as a spirit of illumination, faith, comfort, strength, and assistance, and to supplies of grace by him from Christ: and others concern everlasting life and happiness, and are all of them very ancient, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the
- 40. world began; areexceeding great and precious, suited to the various cases of God's people; are free and unconditional, immutable and irrevocable, and will all of them have their certain accomplishment. These promises are all "in" Christ; with and in whom could they be but in him, since he only existed when they were made, which was from everlasting? with and in whom should they be of right, but in him with whom the covenant, which contains these promises, were made, and who undertook the accomplishment of them? where could they be safe and secure but in him, in whose hands are the persons, grace, and glory of his people? not in Adam, nor in angels, nor in themselves, only in him. Moreover, these promises are "in him yea", and in him amen; they are like the Gospel which exhibits them, consistent, and all of a piece; like the covenant which contains them, and is ordered in all things, and sure; and like the author of them, whose faithfulness and lovingkindness to his in Christ shall never fail; and like Christ himself, in whom they are, who is "the amen, the true and faithful witness, the same today, yesterday, and for ever"; by whose blood, the covenant, and all the promises of it, are ratified and confirmed, and in whom, who is the truth of them, they are all fulfilled. And these are unto the glory of God by us; these serve to illustrate and advance the glory of God, when they are preached by us, and held forth by us in the Gospel, just as they are in Christ, free, absolute, and unconditional; and when they are received "by us" as believers in Christ; for the stronger we are in the faith of the promises, the more glory we give to God; faith by laying hold on, and embracing the promises, glorifies the veracity, faithfulness, power, and grace of God. The Syriac version puts the "Amen" into this last clause, and reads it thus, "therefore by him we give Amen to the glory of God". Geneva Study Bible{12} For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in {u} him Amen, unto the glory of God by {x} us. (12) Last of all he declares the sum of his doctrine, that is, that all the promises of salvation are sure and ratified in Christ. (u) Christ is set also forth to exhibit and fulfil them most assuredly, and without any doubt. (x) Through our ministry. EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES) Meyer's NT CommentaryHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-20.htm"2 Corinthians 1:20. A more precise explanation and confirmation of ναὶ ἐν αὐτῷ γέγονεν, running on to the end of the verse. Hence ὅσαι … ἀμήν is not to be put in a parenthesis, as Griesbach, Scholz, and Ewal. τὸ ναί and τὸ ἀμήν cannot be synonymous, as most of the older commentators take them (“repetit, ut ipsa repetitione rem magis confirmet,” Estius), for this is rendered impossible by the correct reading διὸ κ. διʼ αὐτοῦ τὸ ἀμήν (see the critical remarks). Rather must the former be the cause (διό) of the latter. And here the expression τὸ ἀμήν is without doubt to be explained from the custom in worship, that in public prayer a general Amen was said as certifying the general assurance of faith as to its being heard (see on 1 Corinthians 14:16). Accordingly τὸ ναί and τὸ ἀμήν are here to be distinguished in this way; τὸ ναί, as in the whole context, denotes the certainty objectively given (comp. on that point, Romans 15:8), and τὸ ἀμήν, the certainty subjectively existing, the certainty of faith. Consequently: for, as many promises of God as there are (in the O. T.), in Him is the yea (in Christ is given the objective guarantee of their fulfilment); therefore through Him also the Amen takes place, therefore it comes to pass through Christ, that the Amen is said to God’s promises; i.e. therefore also to Christ, to His work and
- 41. merit, without whichwe should want this certainty, is due the subjective certainty of the divine promises, the faith in their fulfilment. Billroth, indeed (and in the main, de Wette), thinks the conception to be this: that the preachers of the gospel say the Amen through their preaching, so that τὸ ναί refers to the living working of God in Christ, in whom He fulfils His promises, and τὸ ἀμήν to the faithful and stedfast preaching of these deeds of God. But the saying of Amen expressed the assurance of faith, and was done by all; hence τὸ ἀμήν would be in the highest degree unsuitable for denoting the praedicatio. Finally, Rückert is quite arbitrary when he says that τὸ ναί relates to the fulfilment of the prophecies wrought by the appearing of Christ Himself, and τὸ ἀμήν to the erection of the church, which had grown out of that appearing. The article before ναί and ἀμήν denotes the definite Yea and Amen, which relate to the ἐπαγγελίαι Θεοῦ and belong to them. The article was not used before in 2 Corinthians 1:19, because no definite reference of the yea was yet specifie. τῷ Θεῷ πρὸς δόξαν διʼ ἡμῶν] a teleological definition to διʼ αὐτοῦ τὸ ἀμήν with the emphatic prefixing of τῷ Θεῷ: to God’s honour through us, i.e. what redounds to the glorifying of God (2 Corinthians 8:19) through us. διʼ ἡμῶν] nostro ministerio (Grotius), in so far, namely, as the ministry of the gospel-preachers brings about the Amen, the assurance of faith in God’s promises, Romans 10:14. Expositor's Greek TestamentHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-20.htm"2 Corinthians 1:20. ὅσαι γὰρ ἐπαγγελίαι κ.τ.λ.: for how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the Yea. Not only was Christ a διάκονος περιτομῆς … εἰς τὸ βεβαιῶσαι τὰς ἐπαγγελίας τῶν πατέρων (Romans 15:8), but He is Himself, in His own Person, the true fulfilment and recapitulation of them all (cf. Galatians 3:8).—διὸ καὶ διʼ αὐτοῦ τὸ Ἀμήν κ.τ.λ.: wherefore also through Him is the “Amen,” to the glory of God, through us. The reading of the received text conceals the force of these words. It is because Christ is the consummation, the “Yea” of the Divine promises, that the “Amen” is specially fitting at the close of doxologies in public worship (1 Corinthians 14:16). The thought of the fulfilment of God’s promises naturally leads to a doxology (Romans 15:9), to which a solemn Ἀμήν, the Hebrew form of the Greek ναί, whose significance as applied to Christ has just been expounded, is a fitting climax. διʼ ἡμῶν in this clause includes, of course, both St. Paul and his correspondents; it refers, indeed, to the general practice of Christians in their public devotions. Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges20. For all the promises of God in him are yea] Literally, for how many soever the promises of God be, in Him is the yea. The Apostle here, as elsewhere, reminds us that God’s gifts depend upon His promise. Galatians 3:14-29. And this promise is an affirmative utterance, never to be withdrawn or explained away. Whatever gifts are received by the ministration of His servants are the same in their character. and in him Amen] This may refer either (1) actively, to the ratification by God of His own promises, see Hebrews 6:12-18; Hebrews 7:20-21; Revelation 3:14; or (2) passively, to the security we may feel that His Divine Word will never fail us. But our security is ever in Him. Some editors read (with the Vulgate) ‘wherefore through him is the Amen,’ in which case the meaning would be that because God’s promises were unchangeable, they were to be depended upon.
- 42. unto the gloryof God by us] i.e. through our instrumentality, because by the first preachers of the Gospel these glorious promises were made known. Bengel's GnomenHYPERLINK "/2_corinthians/1-20.htm"2 Corinthians 1:20. Ἐπαγγελίαι) promises, declarations.—τὸ ναὶ—τὸ ἀμὴν, yea—amen) The words yea and amen agreeing together, stand in pleasant antithesis to the words yea and nay, 2 Corinthians 1:19, which are at variance with each other: yea by affirmation; amen, by an oath; or yea in respect of the Greeks; amen in respect of the Jews; comp. Galatians 4:6 note; for yea is Greek, amen is Hebrew; or yea, in respect of God who promises, amen in respect of believers; comp. 1 John 2:8; yea in respect of the apostles, amen in respect of their hearers.—τῷ Θεῷ πρὸς δόξαν [to the glory of God] to God for His glory) For the truth of God is glorified in all His promises, which are verified in Christ.— πρὸς δόξαν, to the glory) 2 Corinthians 4:15.—διʼ ἡμῶν, by us) construed with there is, again to be understood. For whatever may be the number of [as many soever as are] the promises of God, there is in Him the Yea, and in Him the Amen [every promise has its yea and amen, i.e. its fulfilment in Him]. To the glory of God (is that Yea and Amen) by us. The yea is re-echoed by us. Pulpit CommentaryVerse 20. - For all the promises of God in him are yea; rather, For so many as be the promises of God, in him is the yea. All the promises of God find in him their unchangeable fulfilment. He was "a minister to confirm the promises" alike to the Jews and the Gentiles (Romans 15:8, 9); and "the premise of the eternal inheritance" can only be fulfilled in him (Hebrews 9:15). And in him Amen. The true reading is," Wherefore by him also is the Amen to God, uttered by us to his glory" (,א A, B, C, F, G, etc.). In Christ is the "yea" of immutable promise and absolute fulfilment; the Church utters the "Amen" of perfect faith and grateful adoration. Here, as in 1 Corinthians 14:16, we have a proof of the ancientness of the custom by which the congregation utters the "Amen" at the end of praise and prayer. But as the "yea" is in Christ, so it is only through him that we can receive the grace to utter aright the "Amen" to the glory of God. Vincent's Word StudiesAll (ὅσαι) Wrong. As many as. Are yea, etc. Making this the predicate of promises, which is wrong. The meaning is that how many soever are God's promises, in Christ is the incarnate answer, "yea!" to the question, "Will they be fulfilled?" Hence Rev., correctly: How many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea. And in Him Amen (καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ ἀμὴν) The correct reading is: διὸ καὶ δἰ αὐτοῦ τὸ ἀμὴν Wherefore also through Him is the Amen. In giving this answer in His person and life, Christ puts the emphatic confirmation upon God's promises, even as in the congregation the people say Amen, verily. In Him is in His person: through Him, by His agency. By us (δἰ ἡμῶν) Through our ministration. Christ, in and through whom are the yea and the amen, is so proclaimed by us as to beget assurance of God's promises, and so to glorify Him.
- 43. PRECEPTAUSTIN RESOURCES JAMES DENNY THECHURCH’S ONE FOUNDATION. 2 Corinthians 1:15-20 (R.V) THE emphatic words in the first sentence are "in this confidence." All the Apostle’s plans for visiting Corinth, both in general and in their details, depended upon the maintenance of a good understanding between himself and the Church; and the very prominence here given to this condition is a tacit accusation of those whose conduct had destroyed his confidence. When he intimated his intention of visiting them, according to the program of vv. 15 and 16 [2 Corinthians 1:15-16], he had felt sure of a friendly welcome, and of the cordial recognition of his apostolic authority; it was only when that assurance was taken away from him by news of what was being said and done at Corinth, that he had changed his plan. He had originally intended to go from Ephesus to Corinth, then from Corinth north into Macedonia, then back to Corinth again, and thence, with the assistance of the Corinthians, or their convoy for part of the way, to Jerusalem. Had this purpose been carried out, he would of course have been twice in Corinth, and it is to this that most scholars refer the words "a second benefit," or rather "grace." This reference, indeed, is not quite certain; and it cannot be proved, though it is made more probable, by using προτερον and δευτεραν to interpret each other. It remains possible that when Paul said, "I was minded to come before unto you, that ye might have a second benefit," he was thinking of his original visit as the first, and of this purposed one as the second, "grace." This reading of his words has commended itself to scholars like Calvin, Bengel, and Heinrici. Whichever of these interpretations be correct, the Apostle had abandoned his purpose of going from Ephesus to Macedonia via Corinth, and had intimated in the First Epistle [1 Corinthians 16:1-24] his intention of reaching Corinth via Macedonia. This change of purpose is not sufficient to explain what follows. Unless there had been at Corinth a great deal of bad feeling, it would have passed without remark, as a thing which had no doubt good reasons, though the Corinthians were ignorant of them; at the very most, it would have called forth expressions of disappointment and regret. They would have been sorry that the benefit ( χάρις), the token of Divine favor which was always bestowed when the Apostle came "in the fullness of the blessing of Christ," and "longing to impart some spiritual gift," had been delayed; but they would have acquiesced as in any other natural disappointment. But this was not what took place. They used the Apostle’s change of purpose to assail his character. They charged him with "lightness," with worthless levity. They called him a weathercock, a Yes and No man, who said now one thing and now the opposite, who said both at once and with equal emphasis, who had his own interests in view in his fickleness, and whose word, to speak plainly, could never be depended upon. The responsibility for the change of plan has already, in the emphatic ταύτῃ τῇ πεποιθήσει, been indirectly transferred to his accusers; but the Apostle stoops to answer them quite straightforwardly. His answer is indeed a challenge: "When I cherished that first wish to visit you, was I-dare you say I was-guilty of the levity with which you charge me? Or-to enlarge the
- 44. question, and, seeingthat my whole character is attacked, to bring my character as a whole into the discussion-the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be the yea yea and the nay nay?" Am I, he seems to say, in my character and conduct, like a shifty, unprincipled politician-a man who has no convictions, or no conscience about his convictions-a man who is guided, not by any higher spirit dwelling in him, but solely by considerations of selfish interest? Do I say things out of mere compliment, not meaning them? When I make promises, or announce intentions, is it always with the tacit reservation that they may be cancelled if they turn out inconvenient? Do you suppose that I purposely represent myself ( ἴνα ᾗ παρ΄ έμοί) as a man who affirms and denies, makes promises and breaks them, has Yes yes and No no dwelling side by side in his soul? You know me far better than to suppose any such thing. All my communications with you have been inconsistent with such a view of my character. As God is faithful, our word to you is not Yes and No. It is not incoherent, or equivocal, or self-contradictory. It is entirely truthful and self-consistent. In this eighteenth verse the Apostle’s mind is reaching out already to what he is going to make his real defence, and ὁ λόγος ἡμῶν ("our word") therefore carries a double weight. It covers at once whatever he had said to them about the proposed journey, and whatever he had said in his evangelistic ministry at Corinth. It is this latter sense of it that is continued in ver. 19 [2 Corinthians 1:19]: "For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not Yes and No, but in him Yes has found place. For how many soever are the promises of God, in Him is the Yes." Let us notice first the argumentative force of this. Paul is engaged in vindicating his character, and especially in maintaining his truthfulness and sincerity. How does he do so here? His unspoken assumption is that character is determined by the main interest of life; that the work to which a man gives his soul will react upon the soul, changing it into its own likeness. As the dyer’s hand is subdued to the element it works in, so was the whole being of Paul-such is the argument-subdued to the element in which he wrought, conformed to it, impregnated by it. And what was that element? It was the Gospel concerning God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Was there any dubiety about what that was? any equivocal mixture of Yes and No there? Far from it. Paul was so certain of what it was that he repeatedly and solemnly anathematized man or angel who should venture to qualify, let alone deny it. There is no mixture of Yes and No in Christ. As the Apostle says elsewhere, [Romans 15:8] Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision "in the interest of the truth of God, with a view to the confirmation of the promises." However many the promises might be, in Him a mighty affirmation, a mighty fulfillment, was given of every one. The ministry of the Gospel has this, then, as its very subject, its constant preoccupation, its highest glory-the absolute faithfulness of God. Who would venture to assert that Paul, or that anybody, could catch the trick of equivocation in such a service? Who does not see that such service must needs create true men? To this argument there is, for the natural man, a ready answer. It by no means follows, he will say, that because the Gospel is devoid of ambiguity or inconsistency, equivocation and insincerity must be unknown to its preachers. A man may proclaim the true Gospel and in his other dealings be far from a true man. Experience justifies this reply; and yet it does not invalidate Paul’s argument. That argument is good for the case in which it is applied. It might be repeated by a hypocrite, but no hypocrite could ever have invented it. It bears, indeed, a striking because an unintentional testimony to the height at which Paul habitually lived, and to his unqualified identification of himself with his apostolic calling. If a man has ten interests in life, more or less divergent, he may have as many inconsistencies in his behavior; but if he has said with St. Paul, "This one thing I do," and if the one thing which absorbs his very soul is an
- 45. unceasing testimony tothe truth and faithfulness of God, then it is utterly incredible that he should be a false and faithless man. The work which claims him for its own with this absolute authority will seal him with its own greatness, its own simplicity and truth. He will not use levity. The things which he purposes, he will not purpose according to the flesh. He will not be guided by considerations perpetually varying, except in the point of being all alike selfish. He will not be a Yes and No man, whom nobody can trust. The argumentative force of the passage being admitted, its doctrinal import deserves attention. The Gospel-which is identified with God’s Son, Jesus Christ-is here described as a mighty affirmation. It is not Yes and No, a message full of inconsistencies, or ambiguities, a proclamation the sense of which no one can ever be sure he has grasped. In it ( εν αυτω means "in Christ") the everlasting Yea has found place. The perfect tense ( γεγονεν) means that this grand affirmation has come to us, and is with us, for good and all. What it was and continued to be in Paul’s time, it is to this day. It is in this positive, definite, unmistakable character that the strength of the Gospel lies. What a man cannot know, cannot seize, cannot tell, he cannot preach. The refutation of popular errors, even in theology, is not gospel; the criticism of traditional theories, even about Scripture, is not gospel; the intellectual "economy," with which a clever man in a dubious position uses language about the Bible or its doctrines which to the simple means Yes, and to the subtle qualifies the Yes enormously, is not gospel. There is no strength in any of these things. Dealing in them does not make character simple, sincere, massive, Christian. When they stamp themselves on the soul, the result is not one to which we could make the appeal which Paul makes here. If we have any gospel at all, it is because there are things which stand for us above all doubts, truths so sure that we cannot question them, so absolute that we cannot qualify them, so much our life that to tamper with them is to touch our very heart. Nobody has any right to preach who has not mighty affirmations to make concerning God’s Son, Jesus Christ-affirmations in which there is no ambiguity, and which no questioning can reach. In the Apostle’s mind a particular turn is given to this thought by its connection with the Old Testament. In Christ, he says, the Yes has been realized; for how many soever are the promises of God, in Him is the Yes. The mode of expression is rather peculiar, but the meaning is quite plain. Is there a single word of good, Paul asks, that God has ever spoken concerning man? Then that word is reaffirmed, it is confirmed, it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It is no longer a word, but an actual gift to men, which they may take hold of and possess. Of course when Paul says "how many soever are the promises," he is thinking, of the Old Testament. It was there the promises stood in God’s name; and hence he tells us in this passage that Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament; in Him God has kept His word given to the fathers. All that the holy men of old were bidden to hope for, as the Spirit spoke through them in many parts and in many ways, is given to the world at last: he who has God’s Son, Jesus Christ, has all God has promised, and all He can give. There are two opposite ways of looking at the Old Testament with which this apostolic teaching is inconsistent, and which, by anticipation, it condemns. There is the opinion of those who say that God’s promises to His people in the Old Testament have not been fulfilled, and never will be. That is the opinion held by many among the modern Jews, who have renounced all that was most characteristic in the religion of their fathers, and attenuated it into the merest deistical film of a creed. It is the opinion also of many who study the Bible as a piece of literary antiquity, but get to no perception of the life which is in it, or of the organic connection between the Old Testament and the New. What the Apostle says of his
- 46. countrymen in hisown time is true of both these classes-when they read the Scriptures there is a veil upon their hearts. The Old Testament promises have been fulfilled, every one of them. Let a man be taught what they mean, not as dead letters in an ancient scroll, but as present words of the living God; and then let him look to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and see whether there is not in Him the mighty, the perpetual confirmation of them all. We smile sometimes at what seems the whimsical way in which the early Christians, who had not yet a New Testament, found Christ everywhere in the Old; but though it may be possible to err in detail in this pursuit, it is not possible to err on the whole. The Old Testament is gathered up, every living word of it, in Him; we are misunderstanding it if we take it otherwise. The opinion just described is a species of rationalism. There is another opinion, which, while agreeing with the rationalistic one that many of God’s promises in the Old Testament have not yet been fulfilled, believes that their fulfillment is still to be awaited. If one might do so without offence, I should call this a species of fanaticism. It is the error of those who take the Jewish nation as such to be the subject of prophecy, and hope for its restoration to Palestine, for a revived Jerusalem, a new Davidic monarchy, even a reign of Christ over such an earthly kingdom. All this, if we may take the Apostle’s word for it, is beside the mark. Equally with rationalism it loses the spirit of God’s word in the letter. The promises have been fulfilled already, and we are not to look for another fulfillment. Those who have seen Christ have seen all that God is going to do-and it is quite adequate-to make His word good. He who has welcomed Christ knows that not one good word of all that God has spoken has failed. God has never, by the promises of the Old Testament, or by the instincts of human nature, put a hope or a prayer into man’s heart that is not answered and satisfied abundantly in His Son. But leaving the reference to the Old Testament on one side, it is well worth while for us to consider the practical meaning of the truth, that all God’s promises are Yea in Christ. God’s promises are His declarations of what He is willing to do for men; and in the very nature of the case they are at once the inspiration and the limit of our prayers. We are encouraged to ask all that God promises, and we must stop there. Christ Himself then is the measure of prayer to man; we can ask all that is in Him; we dare not ask anything that lies outside of Him. How the consideration of this should expand our prayers in some directions, and contract them in others! We can ask God to give us Christ’s purity, Christ’s simplicity, Christ’s meekness and gentleness, Christ’s faithfulness and obedience, Christ’s victory over the world. Have we ever measured these things? Have we ever put them into our prayers with any glimmering consciousness of their dimensions, any sense of the vastness of our request? Nay, we can ask Christ’s glory, His Resurrection Life of splendor and incorruption-the image of the heavenly. God has promised us all these things, and far more: but has He always promised what we ask? Can we fix our eyes on His Son, as He lived our life in this world, and remembering that this, so far as this world is concerned, is the measure of promise, ask without any qualification that our course here may be free from every trouble? Had Christ no sorrow? Did He never meet with ingratitude? Was he never misunderstood? Was He never hungry, thirsty, weary? If all God’s promises are summed up in Him-if He is everything that God has to give-can we go boldly to the throne of grace, and pray to be exempted from what He had to bear, or to be richly provided with indulgences which He never knew? What if all unanswered prayers might be defined as prayers for things not included in the promises-prayers that we might get what Christ did not get, or be spared what He was not spared? The spirit of this passage, however, does not urge so much the definiteness as the compass and the certainty of the promises of God. They are so many that Paul could never enumerate them, and all of them are sure in Christ. And when our eyes are once opened on Him,
- 47. does not HeHimself become as it were inevitably the substance of our prayers? Is not our whole heart’s desire, Oh that I might win Him! Oh that He might live in me, and make me what He is! Oh that that Man might arise in me, that the man I am may cease to be! Do we not feel that if God would give us His Son, all would be ours that we could take or He could give? It is in this mood-with the consciousness, I mean, that in Jesus Christ the sure promises of God are inconceivably rich and good-that the Apostle adds: "wherefore also through Him is the Amen." It is not easy to put a prayer into words, whether of petition or thanksgiving, for men are not much in the habit of speaking to God: but it is easy to say Amen. That is the part of the Church when God’s Son, Jesus Christ, is proclaimed, clothed in His Gospel. Apart from the Gospel, we do not know God, or what He will do, or will not do, for sinful men; but as we listen to the proclamation of His mercy and His faithfulness, as our eyes are opened to see in His Son all He has promised to do for us, nay, in a sense, all He has already done, our grateful hearts break forth in one grand responsive Amen! So let it be! we cry. Unless God had first prompted us by sending His Son, we could never have found it in our hearts to present such requests to Him; but through Christ we are enabled to present them, though it should be at first with only a look at Him, and an appropriating Amen. It is the very nature of prayer, indeed, to be the answer to promise. Amen is all, at bottom, that God leaves for us to say. The solemn acceptance of a mercy so great-an acceptance as joyful as it is solemn, since the Amen is one rising out of thankful hearts-rebounds to the glory of God. This is the final cause of redemption, and however it may be lost sight of in theologies which make man their center, it is always magnified in the New Testament. The Apostle rejoiced that his ministry and that of his friends ( δι ημων) contributes to this glory; and the whole connection of thought in the passage throws a light on a great Bible word. God’s glory is identified here with the recognition and appropriation by men of His goodness and faithfulness in Jesus Christ. He is glorified when it dawns on human souls that He has spoken good concerning them beyond their utmost imaginings, and when that good is seen to be indubitably safe and sure in His Son. The Amen in which such souls welcome His mercy is the equivalent of the Old Testament word, "Salvation is of the Lord." It is expanded in an apostolic doxology: "Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: to Him be glory forever." Rev. David Holwick G 2 Corinthians sermon series First Baptist Church Ledgewood, New Jersey February 14, 1999 2 Corinthians 1:12-22 CLEARING THINGS UP SERMON SUMMARY: Christians need to be consistent and positive in our commitments and relationships. If there is a problem, clear it up.
- 48. I. Being misunderstood. A.Right now, are you at peace with everyone? 1) Most of us have some conflict with someone, somewhere. 2) They have judged us, questioning our motives and integrity. 3) They are letting others know about it, putting us in a bad light. B. Paul struggled with this. 1) What made it tougher was the tension was within a church. 2) This fourth letter (two are missing) seeks to fix it. 3) Before he states the problem, he reveals his approach to handling conflict. II. Search your conscience. A. Paul first looks within himself. 1) Instead of being defensive, he clears himself before God. 2) Three questions to ask yourself. a) Is there anything about this that God condemns? b) Have I really done anything wrong? c) Does my conscience bother me about any part of this? 3) Observation by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? Consensus asks the question: Is it popular? Conscience asks: Is it right? #3259 B. When your conscience doesn't condemn you - but should. 1) Don't trust in conscience alone. 2) Paul is not writing with the same advice given by Jiminy Cricket to Pinocchio, "Let your conscience be your guide." He is talking about a conscience that is shaped by God, and informed by God's Word. 3) Some people have clear consciences even when their actions are evil because their conscience is so warped by sin. C. When your conscience does condemn you. 1) Confess to God what you have done. a) You may be wrong at least in part.
- 49. b) You mayhave lost your temper, or said some cruel or unkind things, or retaliated against someone. 2) Start here: clear your conscience. a) Much strife between people comes from their unwillingness to clear their consciences at the very beginning. III. Be open and above-board. A. Paul wants to operate by godly principles. 1:12 1) He rejects worldly attitudes (despite what others say). B. He is not manipulative but open. 1) Paul has not tried to conceal his motives or mission. 1:13 2) He hopes they will come around to recognize this. 1:14 C. Paul makes a real effort to clear up this misunderstanding. 1) Some people adopt the attitude, "Well, I am just going to forget it and hope the whole thing will disappear. 2) The trouble is that it usually does not disappear. IV. Aim for clear relationships. A. Misunderstanding can lie hidden in the heart. 1) You may think you have dismissed it or forgotten it, but actually it is just festering away, smoldering like a fire that refuses to go out. 2) Sometimes, unexpectedly, it bursts into flames. a) You are angry at somebody and you hardly realize why. b) It is because something has been left unsettled. B. The Bible commands Christians to settle things. 1) If we are upset about something, or we feel someone is upset at us, then we have to do something about it. 2) Advice of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: Matt 5:23-24 "If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, Leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; Then come and offer your gift." C. Clear relationships are tremendously important. 1) When they are neglected, strife, schism, division, hurt and
- 50. pain in achurch are the results. V. A change in plans. A. Paul's original "Plan A." 1:15 1) Travel from Ephesus to Corinth. a) Work out problems in church. b) Travel through Greece, return to Corinth. 1> Double benefit: bless them coming and going. B. "Plan B" 1 Cor 16:5-9 1) Paul changes his itinerary to a single visit. a) Greece first, then Corinth at end. 2) The Corinthians were ticked off at this. 1:17 a) Seems unreasonable due to difficulty of travel and communication. b) But Corinth had a clique that hated him and saw this as evidence he was unreliable, like a pagan. C. Faithfulness in commitments. 1) We can relate to Paul's situation. a) Many modern Christians are unreliable. b) If you say you will do something, do it. 1> Be somewhere, be there. 2) Have a sense of responsibility and fulfill your commitments. a) People who don't are "worldly." VI. Yes and No. A. No. 1) Nothing wrong with saying "no" sometimes. 2) Issue is saying both at the same time. B. Yes. 1) If you say it, mean it. President Harry Truman's parents revered the great Confederate general, Robert E. Lee. At one point young Truman gave his mother a little portrait of Lee and she hung it beside her dresser. Harry's favorite biographical essay was on Robert E. Lee. It included a letter that Lee wrote to his son in 1860.
- 51. Listen to thesewords and just imagine the impact they must have had on young Harry Truman. Lee writes: "You must be frank with the world. Frankness is the child of honesty and courage... Just say what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right...." Robert E. Lee could not know when he wrote those words to his son that a century later they would be lived out by a President of the United States. We never know what a harvest may come from seed we sow. #2806 2) Jesus teaches this. a) Sermon on the Mount - let yes be yes. Matt 5:37 b) Jesus' parable of the two sons. Matt 21:28-31 1> "Yes" and "no" not as important as actions. C. Don't let your "yes" become "no." 1) Say you'll be someplace when you have no intention of it. 2) Say you'll do something when you have no intention of doing it. VII. God is a "yes" person. A. We like a positive attitude. 1) Mortgage company commercial: "When your bank says no, Champion says YESSSS!" 2) They stole idea from God. a) When God says "yes," it is an eternal "yes." b) God's promises are always positive promises. 1> He wants to bless and not curse us. John 3:17 2> He does not want to reject but restore. Isa 61:3 B. We need to affirm God's "yes." 2 Cor 1:20 1) Our response is "Amen" - "so be it!" 2) Accept that his promises are for you, each one of them. C. God helps us internally. 1) He helps us stand firm through Jesus. 2) He gives us his Holy Spirit. 1:22
- 52. a) It isa deposit of good things to come. 1> Modern Greek - word used for engagement ring. b) It communicates with our spirit. 3) It is not always easy to be a "yes" person. a) Ask God to help you keep your word. b) We need to overcome our inner rebellion. VIII. Paul is a "yes" person. A. He had reasons for changing his plans. B. He wanted to preserve their freedom to act. 2 Cor 1:24 1) Challenges misunderstandings in church today. 2) He is not their boss; God is. (or should be) 3) He works by their side, not as their head. a) Jesus: God is our master and we are brothers. Matt 23:8 b) Allow God to work in people's lives. C. He wanted to spare them pain. 2 Cor 1:23 1) Spirit told him his letters and previous visit were harsh enough. 2) Surgeons must cut people, but only as much as necessary. IX. Clear things up. A. Choose a positive approach to life. 1) Accept God's "yes" for you personally. 2) He wants to save you. B. Keep a clear conscience. C. Maintain clear relationships. 1) Make plans to fix any that are not. D. Seek God's guidance on every matter. ===================================================================== ====== SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON: This sermon is heavily dependent on the sermon "When You Are Misunderstood," Studies in 2 Corinthians, by Rev. Ray C. Stedman, Message Number 2, Catalog Number 3677, September 23, 1979. Copyright (C) 1995 Discovery Publishing, 3505 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA. 94306-3695, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church. #2806 "Seeds Sold Here," Dynamic Preaching, Seven Worlds Publishing,
- 53. July 2, 1993. #3259"Conscience," To Illustrate...; by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Leadership Journal, Spring 1995, page 48. These and 4,500 others are part of a database that can be downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html ===================================================================== ====== Copyright © 2018 by Rev. David Holwick Created with the Freeware Edition of HelpNDoc: Easily create HTML Help documents 1:18-22 Knowing The Faithfulness Of God Previous Next 2 Corinthians 1:18-22 “But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’ but in him it has always been ‘Yes.’ For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” One of the most popular 20th century hymns is “Great is Thy Faithfulness” written by Thomas Obediah Chisholm who died in 1960. There was no special providence that caused him to write those words. They were his personal response to the teaching of the Bible. He was saying in this hymn, “It’s true. God is faithful.” He was a junior school-teacher who had become a Christian when he was 27 years of age. He attempted the Christian ministry shortly after that, but just for a couple of years. It was not his calling, and so he became an insurance salesman remaining in that vocation for the rest of his life. A church member with no dramatic story, and an ‘ordinary’ conversion, he followed the Lord Jesus Christ. One snapshot shows him when he reached his nineties with a wrinkled face and a pair of glasses. He believed in the faithfulness of God, and he wrote a poem about it which has been sung millions of times ever since, and it will go on being sung until the end. “God is faithful,” our text says, and Thomas Chisholm sings, “Great is Thy faithfulness,” and I am going to say the same thing today. Someone pipes up, “How do you know? Those are the kind of things preachers are supposed to say.” Right, how can we tell? But how do people know anything? Many years ago a question was set for an outstandingly able physics student. He was asked to describe how he would determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer. He coolly replied, “Tie a long piece of string to the barometer, then lower it from the roof to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer would equal the height of the building.”
- 54. Though the answerwas correct it did not display any knowledge of physics, and everyone there knew that. So the student was allowed six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer. For five minutes he sat in silence, unable to decide which of his answers to use. On being advised to hurry up, the student replied that he had thought of five ways in which it could be done, “You could drop the barometer from the roof and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height can then be worked out from the formula H=3D0.5g x t=B2 But bad luck on the barometer. “Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper’s shadow. Thereafter, it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the building’s height. “If you wanted to be highly scientific, you could swing the barometer like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the skyscraper’s roof. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T=3D2p =D6(l/g). “If you merely wanted to be orthodox, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building. “But undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the caretaker’s door and say to him, ‘I will give you a nice new barometer if you tell me the height of this skyscraper.” That student was from Denmark and his name was Niels Bohr, and he went on to great achievements in the field of physics. He won the Nobel Prize in 1922 for the theory of the hydrogen bomb. He became Denmark’s greatest scientist. He died in Copenhagen in 1962, two years after the writer of the hymn, “Great is Thy faithfulness,” had passed away in New Jersey. How do we know something? The scientist says that we test it in various circumstances, and observe carefully what happens, and if it is repeatable by anyone else – anywhere in the world, for the rest of history – then we know that that theory is indeed a fact. It becomes a scientific law – what is the boiling point of water, what is the speed of light, what figure is pi etc. Christianity is not that different. In particular you examine the life, teaching and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Then you also listen to the claims people make who say they know him as their God, individually and when they get together, and you are doing this continually and everywhere because it is important. You are observing and evaluating, and you bring your own life under the implications of what you hear. But you are using your mind, and then you come to certain conclusions about God. The apostle tells us here, “God is faithful.” In fact he says, “Surely … God is faithful.” The Lord’s faithfulness goes without saying. The God and Father of Jesus Christ being cosmic malice, or as unpredictable as Welsh sunshine? God forbid! “Surely … God is faithful.” This could even be an asseveration, that is, Paul might be making an oath appealing to God as his witness that he is not the kind of man who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. He does not say two different things at the same time: “our message to you is not ‘Yes’ and ‘No'” (v.18). “I am not Mr Facing Both Ways. I call on the faithful and true God as my witness that this fact is so,” he is saying. Whether that is how the verse is to be understood there is no question that Paul declares that God himself is a trustworthy Lord. How do we know that God is faithful? There are three ways the apostle tells us. 1. We know that God is Faithful because Jesus Christ is not the Great Deceiver.
- 55. “Our message toyou is not ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ but in him has always been ‘Yes.'” (vv.18&19). Our message isn’t two contradictory things, because Jesus wasn’t two contradictory things. He was not malevolence and holiness, deceit and truth, the light of the world and the black hole. It is Satan’s constant ambition to make us think like that. There was once a fine student here whose father and brother had died with a genetic disease which she also might have inherited – time alone would tell. During her final term her mother also died of cancer. She was orphaned without a brother or a sister. The fiery darts of Satan were thrown at her during that time, and the suggestions were constantly being made to her that God was a force of cosmic malice – a black and malicious deity. But she had what Paula Yates did not have, a pastor to come to, and when we looked at Christ together, at his life and his teaching, at his whole self-revelation of God, then we rediscovered him to be good and loving and patient and fair. He was one who could always be relied upon. So Paul’s claim is, “we are like him.” Who came first? The Lord Jesus’ messengers or the Lord Jesus? Clearly the Lord Jesus came first and he created the tone for his apostles and their message. The church is his body. He was trustworthy and so were they. In other words, no mighty Yes-Christ could have been preached by Yes-and-No heralds. So the church must always be straight as it teaches everything the Lord Jesus said. We have no right to modify the words of Jesus, or to interpret them to mean the very opposite of what he said. We may not cause this great claim of his, “no man cometh unto the Father but by me” to mean “but every man may go his own way to God.” We may not call him a child of his time. We are children of our time but not him – he is the Lord of the years. We have one commission and that is to tell it as it is, as the church has taught from the beginning through its great champions and spelled out in its confessions. We mustn’t play games with Scripture. During this last week the Labour party Conference took place, and Simon Hoggart of the Guardian (a Labour paper) did what he did at last year’s conference, he counted the number of sentences in the Prime Minister’s speech which did not contain a verb, and they amounted to a record-breaking 163, Hoggart referred to them as “those phrases which, by omitting a doing word, appear to offer a promise without making a commitment.” Now that is what Paul is discussing here, a subtle message open to opposite interpretations, at the same time ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ The Lord Jesus Christ is utterly different. He is Yes and Amen. Who is this person Paul preached? “The Son of God” (v.19) is the first phrase Paul uses. God has a Son! That is remarkable in itself, but this is not any God but the God of the Old Testament, the God of Genesis 1:1, the God who was absolutely alone, but who spoke a heavens and an earth into being, the Holy One of Israel. It is he that has always had a Son! I say the following words to you over and over again, that the sons of men are as human as the fathers who begat them, not 95% human but 100% human. So it is with God’s only-begotten Son, he is as divine as his Father. So here we are presented with the infinite, eternal, unchangeable Son of the infinite, eternal, unchangeable Father. If the Father is truth then the Son is truth too. If the Father is light then the Son is light too. If the Father is trustworthy then the Son is trustworthy. The next phrase Paul uses is “Jesus Christ” (v.19). Now we think of ‘Christ’ there as his second name. Geoff Thomas … Jesus Christ. But ‘Christ’ there is a title, like Prince, or an office, like a Doctor, or a rank, like Captain. ‘Christ’ means ‘anointed’. The Hebrew form is ‘Messiah’ – ‘Jesus the Messiah or the anointed one.’ There were many men called ‘Jesus’ at that time. One is mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, chapter 4, and verse 11, “Jesus, who is called Justus,
- 56. also sends greetings.”It was a common name, but only one Jesus was God’s eternal Son and was anointed by God. During the Old Testament there were offices like prophets and priests and kings, and part of their inauguration was being anointed with oil. There is a moving scene in the Old Testament in I Samuel 16 when the prophet arrives in Bethlehem and tells the nervous elders of the city that he had come in peace to make a sacrifice. The people are invited to gather at an altar and Samuel knows that it is one of the sons of Jesse who is going to be the new king of Israel. Jesse summons his son Eliab, but it is not him. Abinadab comes but it is not him, nor is it Shammah. All seven sons pass before Samuel, but the new king is not amongst them. “So he asked Jesse, ‘Are these all the sons you have?’ ‘There is still the youngest,’ Jesse answered, ‘but he is tending the sheep.’ Samuel said, ‘Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.’ So he sent and had him brought. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for he is the one.’ So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came down upon David in power” (1 Samuel 16:11-13). The Lord Jesus was also anointed, but not with oil, which was a symbol, but with the reality, the Holy Spirit. When he was baptised by John and his public ministry began the Holy Spirit descended upon him without measure. So he was set apart as God’s anointed one, the promised Messiah. The divinely anointed prophet, priest and king – the Messiah Jesus. But we are not to think that the name ‘Jesus’ is simply the name of his human nature. Even the name ‘Jesus’ is replete with implications of deity. The name means ‘Jehovah saves’, or ‘salvation is Jehovah’. You remember the context in which the name is given. Neither Mary nor Joseph were allowed to choose the name of their first born son. God summoned an angel into his presence and told him to go and break into a dream of Joseph and inform him that this child was to be called “Jesus, because he will save his people from their sin” (Matt. 1:21). Matthew chapter one ends with the phrase, “And he gave him the name Jesus” (Matt. 1:25). I still remember the warm vigour with which Professor John Murray taught us this truth in a class at Seminary almost forty years ago, and this week I took down my book of notes from that class and I read there these words, “it is the characteristic Old Testament representation that salvation is of the Lord, and the title ‘Saviour’ – which the name ‘Jesus’ implies – is one that God reserves for himself – ‘besides me there is no Saviour.’ Although in the Old Testament on rare occasions human deliverers may be called ‘saviours’, that God is the exclusive Saviour is the more characteristic and uniform note of the Old Testament, particularly in the writing prophets That must be taken into account when we read this word of the angel to Joseph. That very title in the context of Old Testament writers is evidence of the divine function that belongs to this child.” So the apostle is speaking here of “the Son of God, Jesus Christ” (v.19), and he tells his readers that this was that one who was proclaimed in Corinth. When they arrived in Europe it was the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was the heart of their message. “We have come here to tell you about this remarkable person,” they said. “He has not written any books, but we can tell you many of the wonderful things which he said. He was not a military leader. He did not preach political revolution, but many men and women have already given their lives in bringing his message to others. We were not actually shocked when he began his ministry because God had promised many centuries ago that one day he would send a Messiah into the world. He lived all his life in Israel except for one brief time when he went to Africa, to the country of Egypt, as a
- 57. baby boy. Hewas taken there by his parents as refugees from political oppression. His ministry lasted for only three years, and yet what amazing things he packed into that period.” Then they went on and told them of Jesus’s diagnosis of the human condition, that it is out of the heart of man that our problems come, and that we needed a radical change, a birth from above, which he is able to give us. They told them of his purpose in coming into the world to give his life as a ransom. He was the Lamb of God who had come to take away the sin of the world and reconcile a holy God to rebels. They told them of his death on the cross, his courage and forgiveness under suffering, and how after some days in the grave he rose from the dead, and Paul told them of how others had seen him for a period of forty days and how finally he had met the risen Christ too. They told them about Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit and how he enabled them to live new lives and to speak with this grace and wisdom. It was “the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached.” It was no inconsequential message, indifferently delivered. It was ‘heralded’ – that is the word translated here as ‘preached’ – declared by those conscious they had been sent by the King of Kings, and so it was full of divinity. Then Paul goes on to remind them that this proclamation was not done in the dark cellars of a mystery cult with drums beating and the heavy smell of frankincense, but in public debates and in synagogues and in the market square of Athens, and finally “among you” in Corinth says Paul (v.19). They had come to this capital city of Achaia six years ago and had preached this message to them. That is the whole basis of his writing to them: “You did not invite us to come. There was no official committee from the city pleading and telling us that you were drawn to the Christian message. You knew nothing at all, and didn’t care, but God sent us to you and we came to tell you plainly these things about the Son of God, Jesus Christ. The message about him came “by me and Silas and Timothy” You see how the apostle is spelling it out? His passion here is to make everything above board, from their very first meeting with him. Should he lose his integrity in their eyes then not only is he done for but Jesus Christ and Christianity too. There was no attempt to deceive, to be less than honest in any way at all. This sincere and true Christ was represented sincerely and truly by his servants Paul, Silas and Timothy. Three very different witnesses but all with the same message. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by those three men was not ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ so that after they had been there you were even more confused as to who Jesus was and what he did. “In him it has always been ‘Yes'” says Paul (v.19). When the Father’s love for the world meant he had to send his one and only Son to the virgin’s womb, “Yes,” said the Lord Jesus and he came to Bethlehem’s stable. “Born ‘under the law’,” said God. “Yes,” said the Son. When the Father gave him the cup of Golgotha’s pain to drink in Gethsemane and there was no other cup, “Yes,” said the Son and he drank it. When he cried to God, “Why?” and God did not answer him, even then the Son said “Yes,” and entered the dereliction and darkness for us. The Lord Jesus always affirmed God. There is not a leaf of Indian paper you could place between the Son and the Father. They had one mind and one will and one loving purpose. And when the Son began his pubic ministry at his baptism then the Father spoke and said, “Yes, this is my beloved Son I whom I am well pleased.” And when his three years of ministry were coming to an end and God met with him again on the Mount of Transfiguration God again said, “Yes, this is my beloved Son. Listen to him!” And when he lay in the tomb until the first day of the week cold and dead, God said “Yes, this is my Son who is the Saviour of the world,” and raised him from the grave.
- 58. Jesus Christ isGod’s everlasting “Yes.” When they were together in eternity, and then when Christ took our frail flesh and lived amongst us, and now in heaven at God’s right hand he has always been God’s great “Yes!” God has had no second thoughts. He has no need to send another Jesus, or even other apostles. All of salvation and life and eternity is in his blessed Son, and in him alone. Christ is the affirmation of God’s love for sinners. So tonight he is saying to you, “Yes,” he is glad you are interested in hearing of his Son. “Yes,” he wants you to know that he has so loved you that he has brought you here to listen to these words of Jesus Christ. “No,” he will not delight in your death in hell but “Yes,” that you come to him and be saved. “Yes,” you may know him as your God tonight, even though your past has been indefensible and your future is hopeless. When he says, “Come unto me”, “Yes,” he means you, personally and particularly, that you are to come just as you are and not tarry until you are better. That is what we preach. Not “Yes” and “No.” “‘Yes’ you may come, but ‘No’ you may not come just yet … not at this moment … not as you are now … “No” you must first change this … and then do that … before you may come.” No! Not that. Not that at all. “Yes,” this is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and “Yes” you must come to him now. “Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” So the first proof that God is a faithful God is the utterly unambiguous straightforward nature of his Son Jesus Christ, who does not baffle, who is not elusive or enigmatic. There are the gospels about him. Read them and learn that the God and Father of Jesus Christ is not an insincere deity. He tells you are in trouble because of your sin, but he can rescue you through Christ if you come to him. 2. We Know that God is Faithful because He Never Fails to keep His Promises. “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (v.20). When man fell God brought judgment, but also promise. Death came into the human race, and man was driven out from the Garden into a groaning world, but God also said that through the seed of the woman Eve one would be born who would bruise the serpent’s head. Generations later God met with Abram in Ur of the Chaldees and told him that through his offspring all the nations on earth would be blessed. So the line of the promised seed of the woman was narrowed down to one family alone. From Abraham through his son Isaac – who was not his oldest son – and then though Jacob, who was not Isaac’s first-born, and then through Jacob’s fourth son Judah – bypassing eleven brothers. Eleven generations later Samuel comes to Bethlehem and anoints one of Jesse’s youngest sons David. From this kingly line God says he will raise up a righteous Branch. So the Messiah comes from a line taken directly through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse and David, not through any other of the families of mankind. Then the promises of God get more particular. “The sceptre will not depart from Judah … until he comes to whom it belongs” (Genesis 49:10). When was Christ born? Just before the government of Judah collapsed with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Then a promise was that the child would be born in a certain small town: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel” (Micah 5:2). Again, this is exactly where Christ was born, not the Bethlehem 70 miles north of Jerusalem in Zebulon, but the one in Judah. God’s promises are yes in Christ.
- 59. But there aremore promises, in fact those which speak of the coming of the Messiah have been calculated as numbering 332. “They cover such matters as his family’s social status, his lifestyle, his general demeanour, his teaching and his extraordinary powers. Even more surprisingly they included minute details of the events surrounding his death. The prophets said that he would be forsaken by his followers, betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (which would then be used to buy a potter’s filed), wrongly accused, tortured and humiliated (in response to which he would not retaliate), executed alongside common criminals, and put to death by crucifixion (a form of execution never carried out by the Jews). They also said that at the time of his death he would pray for his executioners, none of his bones would be broken, his body would be pierced, and people would cast lots to see who would get his clothing” (John Blanchard, “Why Y2K?”, p.50, Evangelical Press, 1999). God made all those promises, but see what Paul states in our text, “no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (v.20). Consider one more promise that is made in Psalm 16 and verse 10, where the promised Messiah is thinking of his resurrection and speaking prophetically to God and saying, “you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.” Peter tells the crowd in Jerusalem at Pentecost those words: Christ is risen and lives as God promised. It is another ‘Yes’ promise in Christ. Why is the fulfilment of this promise particularly important? Because it is the foundation for the message Paul brought to the Corinthians. All that the Greek philosophers had been offering them were those words of Aristotle, “Death is a dreadful thing, for it is the end.” One thinks of Samuel Johnson at the end of his life getting feeble-minded and muttering often those words of Shakespeare from “Measure for Measure” “Ay, but to die, and go, we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot”. (Act 3, Scene 1). Then Paul had met the great living One who had been dead, and he knew that death no longer said, “Yes” in triumph over every one who perished. God now had the last word in Christ, and this becomes the foundation for his message. Peter said, God “has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Pet. 1:3). The glory of that is this, that the resurrection does not belong to the world of Greek mythology, nor the realm of ideas, nor the sphere of doctrines. It did not take place on Mount Olympus or in Narnia. It belongs to the sphere of facts, to a certain geographical location on the Damascus road where Paul met the risen Christ. It belongs to the empty tomb where a degree of longitude and a degree of latitude cross one another in Jerusalem, and the garden, and the upper room which had a lock on the door, and the dusty hot road to Emmaus, and a fishbake in the early morning at the side of a lake, and a remote hill in Galilee. Christ triumphed over that death which is coming day by day nearer to each one of us. There were those great cosmic empires of heaven and hell. There was that apparent and momentary triumph of hell over the forces of light and God. There were those few days in which the Son of God lay cold and dead in the tomb. That is where the living Son of God lay. That is where incarnate wisdom and love had ended. Where now are the promises of God? Then God raised him from the dead, because he had made a promise to bruise the serpent’s head. He would not let the Holy One see decay. So God kept his promise and routed the powers of hell and vindicated incarna te love. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, rose, and that is the great guarantee of our resurrection, and its glorious model. That is the seed of our resurrection, and it seems to me that in moments when one stands on the precipice of doubt and unbelief, that we must come back here, time and again, to this empty tomb and the eruption into history of the faithful God, who
- 60. makes and keepsall his promises. He has vindicated his Son, who has thus become the Yes of confirmation of what his Father promised in Eden and through Abraham and David. So, says Paul, “through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (v.20). We experience the faithfulness of God only through Jesus Christ. We become the beneficiaries of his faithful promises through being joined to Christ by faith, and thus we can echo back our ‘Amen’ to God “through him.” So God is being glorified all over the world today as the church makes the resurrection of Christ its doxology. Christ is risen! Henceforth never Death nor hell shall us enthral, We are Christ’s, in Him for ever We have triumphed over all; All the doubting and dejection Of our trembling hearts have ceased: ‘Tis the day of resurrection, Let us rise and keep the feast Christ is risen! Hallelujah! Risen our victorious Head! Sing his praises! Hallelujah! Christ is risen from the dead. Amen! Such words of resurrection hope are spoken and sung by the whole church all over the world through Christ, as they have been for the last two thousand years, to the glory of the God who raised Christ, the God who is faithful. He keeps his promises. 3. We Know that God is Faithful because He Enables us to Stand Firm in Christ. God is not like the starter in a race, getting us to our marks, and firing the pistol, and then wandering off and having nothing more to do with us. He doesn’t mutter, “Now it’s all up to you.” He is with us throughout the entire Christian marathon. “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (vv.21&22). How is it that Thomas Chisholm came to believe that God is faithful, so that he wrote, “Great is Thy faithfulness”? How is it that Paul, Silas and Timothy all affirmed that? How is it that many of us believe in the faithfulness of God? Is it because we were more religious than others? Holier? Better people? Not at all, it is because God has helped us to stand firm in Christ.As the apostle says here, “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ” (v.21). Paul has been telling them of the hardships he had suffered, that he was under such great pressure that he despaired of life. But he is still going on trusting God and doing this work. Why does he not cave in? Why is he not lying on the floor wallowing in self-pity? What is the explanation for his whole heroic bearing? “God makes us stand in Christ,” he says, “and he is the same God who makes you stand firm in Christ too.” Think of the branch of a vine, how slender and weak it is by itself. But joined to the vine – in the vine – it is a fruit-bearer. So too Paul and Silas and Timothy are helpless alone. Without Christ they can do nothing, but in Christ “they stand firm.” We firmly believe the promises of God in Christ. We get the benefits of those promises as we abide in Christ. The verb ‘stand fast’ is in the present tense. We are going on standing firm, day by day in Christ. This is our present privilege and obligation. Then the tenses
- 61. of the verbschange into the past as Paul describes three divine acts of pure vertical sovereign grace, which God has done to all his people:- i] “He anointed us.” God himself did this. He did not send a prophet like Samuel to do it, it was He himself who came to Corinth of the Gentiles, right in the neighbourhood of the temple of Artemis, and there he anointed with his Spirit us – Paul stands in solidarity with the whole Corinthian congregation – “we have been anointed by God”, he tells them. As long promised by the prophet Joel the anointing would be upon indiscriminate, upon daughters as well as sons, young men and old men, mere maid-servants and man-servants – those on the lowest rungs of the social ladder – let not one slave think his rank prevents his enjoying this privilege, Gentiles as well as Jews, the Spirit would come upon them, and then they would all declare the wonderful works of God. The Mosaic longing that all God’s servants would be prophets was at last fulfilled. Paul here is underlining the new covenant priesthood of the mere believer, the prophetic and kingly nature of every single Christian. God has anointed us in regeneration. There is not one single Christian who is unanointed, who is not a priest and a prophet and a king. That is the wonderful status of the mere Christian. The apostle Peter can speak to similar Gentile strangers and pilgrims scattered all through Asia Minor and he can say to them, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Pet. 2:9). That has given us the right of access to God. We can hurry into his presence in the name of Jesus and cry “Abba Father” to him and he will give us his undivided attention. There was a time when only the anointed High Priest on the Day of Atonement could enter into the Holy of Holies one day a year, but we can enter at any time and remain there with God for as long as a heart can desire, because God has anointed us as priests in Christ. I say that every Christian is an anointed Christian. If you heard Peter sitting at one side of the Antioch congregation and refusing to eat with the Gentile members of the church then he was not proving that he was unanointed but he was showing to what depths a Spirit-anointed member of Christ’s church could fall. So none of us may take our privileges for granted – “take heed you who stand lest you fall” – and each of us must cry to God, “Help me to stand firm in Christ.” I will not minimize your privileges in Christ. I will take them and scourge you with them if you are not standing firm. Every Christian has become a member of the fellowship of the Anointed – the Messianic community, the anointed ones who are in the Great Anointed One. The is how God makes us stand firm. He gives us Holy Spirit anointing. How wonderful his faithfulness. ii] “He set his seal of ownership on us” (v.22). There is a document of ownership of houses and businesses and merchandise and lands. The owner pours warm wax onto the document and puts his own unique seal upon it. Those things are legally his, and nobody else’s. The seal is a mark of authenticity. You are the document, and the seal is God. He has confirmed that those who have put their trust in Christ belong to him by setting his seal upon them. “Saul of Tarsus is now mine! The Philippian jailor is now mine! Lydia is now mine!” When God regenerates he sets his seal of ownership on us. “These are mine,” he declares. He is not ashamed that such derelicts are his. God is so faithful towards us. The seal is not a spiritual experience. It is the Holy Spirit himself which is the free gift of God to us. We have not worked for it. We have not earned it. We have not agonized until this is ours. We have not had to prove ourselves faithful for a long time and then we have discovered that it has been enough and God has sealed us. It has nothing to do with our bringing the sealing on ourselves, “He set his seal of ownership on us.” It is because he is faithful and he has committed
- 62. himself to takingus as his own: “I know all about them, that those Corinthians will start bragging in their different leaders, and start saying that there is no resurrection, and falling into sin, and tolerating massive wickedness in the congregation, but those people in Corinth are yet mine. I have set my seal upon them.” Does that mean we can do what we like because we have been sealed by God? No way. Remember what was written to the Ephesians, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephs. 4:30). You have him. You’ve been sealed by him. Then do not grieve him. iii] He “put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (v.22). This is another picture from the business world. We know it today. “You want a top of the range computer system?” The advertisement asks. “You can take it now if you pay a meagre deposit. You do not need to pay the rest until next year. Just put down the deposit and it will be yours.” They are not lying. You pay the deposit and that desirable item becomes legally yours. So what do we pay God to have him? Or what down-payment do we make? That is not the picture at all. It is not the deposit that we have scraped together in order for the desirable object to become ours. It is rather God who has paid the deposit. From all that the world has to offer of rich and noble and smart and beautiful people, God has looked and loved and chosen us – the weak and despised things of the world – the nobodies. He has made us his own, and this is another confirmation that we are indeed his. He has paid the deposit guaranteeing that we are his. The deposit is God himself. The cost to God is God himself, sent into the hearts of sinners. It is there that this earnest has been deposited. Do we Christians have him? Of course. What true believer does not? If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his. The Spirit he has given us is a further persuasion, a down-payment that means that our ownership is most certainly the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to Jesus, with all that that infers. He has guaranteed to us that heaven is to come, and glory is to come, and likeness to Christ is to come, and a new heavens and a new earth is to come. “Now I belong to Jesus. Jesus belongs to me. Not for the years of time alone But for eternity.” What blessings now, and hope in the future. Another life of the Beatle John Lennon has been published and extensively reviewed this week. At the end of his life Lennon lived with Yoko Ono in a luxury apartment in New York, a home which was full of violence, drugs and gloom. He records who he had met Paul Macartney and his wife Linda the night before – remember how in the thiry years of their marrriage the Macartneys were apart for only one night – and Lennon writes in his diary: “Out with Paul and Linda. Boring. All they talk about is ‘how well they are.’ Really overbearing, self-satisfied and dumb.” Then he writes a letter to his cousin Leila in England in January 1979: “I’m 40 next year – I hope life begins – that is, I’d like a little less trouble and more – what?” At the end of the following year he was shot dead. Imagine having all that money, being so unhappy, not thinking that life had yet begun, but not knowing what else there was for him to do or where to go to find the elusive abundant life. Do you see that why Thomas Chisholm wrote, “Great is Thy faithfulness”? He had simply met with the Jesus Christ who never baffles or perplexes. He had come to Christ and he had found him to be faithful to all he said. He had read the promises of God in his word about the Messiah
- 63. who would comeand he found that God always kept his promises. Then all through his Christian life God had helped him to stand firm by giving him the indwelling Holy Spirit as the anointing one, the sealing one and the guaranteeing one who is our deposit for what glories are to come. 1st October 2000 GEOFF THOMAS When You Are Misunderstood /daily-devotions/2-corinthians/forgiveness-when-discipline-endsRead the Scripture: 2 Corinthians 1:12-2:4 But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you... was not Yes and No, but in him it has always been Yes. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are Yes in Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:18-20 Paul answers the charge of some who were actually saying that he lived just like a worldling, a non-Christian, that he did whatever was convenient, and he did not bother to try to keep his word in any way. It is always interesting to me how these letters find such a remarkable correspondence to what goes on in our lives today. One problem among Christians, and often younger Christians, is that they have not yet seen that faithfulness to their commitments ought to be a characteristic of them. It is amazing to me, and sometimes discouraging, to see how many Christians, even older Christians, will say they are going to do something or be someplace and then show no sense of responsibility for fulfilling the promise and the commitment they made. That is contrary to the nature of a Christian, because it is contrary to the nature of God. God is not like that; He is faithful, Paul says. When God says yes, then it is an eternal yes. He will never take it back. When God says no, He means no. He never says yes when He means no. Paul is saying that God's promises are always positive promises. Have you noticed that in the Scriptures? Whenever you come to God in the name of Jesus and ask for what He has promised, the answer is always yes. That is ultimately what He is saying: Yes. God's promises are for blessing, not for cursing. Why did Paul change his plan? Why did he say two times he was going to come directly to Corinth but instead did not come directly? Rather, he went by way of Macedonia, and he came only once. Paul says his plans changed because the Spirit of God opened his eyes to see circumstances that made him change his mind. He could see that the great promises of blessing that God had for this church at Corinth would only be fulfilled if he did not come directly to Corinth but instead went to Macedonia and waited for Titus there. So, convinced of the Spirit and in obedience to what he saw of the Spirit's teaching in this regard, with a clear conscience, Paul changed his original plan and went to Macedonia instead of Corinth. Father, I thank You that You have awakened in my heart a desire to say a responding, resounding amen to what You have promised. Grant to me now freedom and an obedient heart to claim these for myself.
- 64. Life Application God alwayssays yes to to what He has promised. How well do we understand His promises? How faithful are we to keep the promises and commitments we make? Daily Devotion © 2006 by Ray Stedman Ministries. For permission to use this content, please review RayStedman.org/permissions. Subject to permission policy, all rights reserved. ALL THE PROMISES NO. 2657 A SERMON INTENDEDFOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, JANUARY 14, 1900 DELIVERED BYC. H. SPURGEON AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTONON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 31, 1882 “Forall the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” 2 Corinthians 1:20 AS the result of a very simple incident, a sublime truth may be proclaimed. It was so in the instance referred to in this chapter. These Corinthians had misrepresentedthe apostle Paul, and spokenill of him. He might have ignored their unkindness, and said nothing about it, but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was led to actotherwise, and while defending his own characterfor consistency, to vindicate also the consistencyand truthfulness of God. We might never have had this precious verse if Paul had not been so ill- treated by these men of Corinth. They did him greatwrong, and causedhim much sorrow of heart, for a man who was so sincere and upright could not but be sorelyvexed by their unjust suspicions and misrepresentations, yetyou see how the evil was overruled by God for good, and through their unsavory gossipand slander this sweetsentencewas pressedoutof Paul, “Forall the promises of God in Christ are yea, and in Christ Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” There are many things which, at first, we may regret, but for which we are afterwards exceedinglygrateful. I have felt half inclined to thank the Pharisees andscribes for some of their cruel attacks upon our blessedLord Himself, for, in answering them, He has given us lessons whichwe now highly prize. Perhaps we might never have had those three wonderful parables of the lost sheep, the lost silver, and the lost son, if those cavilers had not spokenevil
- 65. of Him becauseallthe publicans and sinners drew near to hear Him. The fact was, that Paul had intended to visit the Christians at Corinth again, but he felt compelled to alter his decision, and so he did not go to them, because he would only have gone in order to chastise orrebuke them, they had behaved so ill. In their folly, and in their coolness towards the apostle, they misconstrued his action, and they said, “We cannot rely upon his word, and we do not know what he will do, he promised that he would come to us, but he has changedhis mind.” The apostle declares here that he did not use lightness, or fickleness, eitherin giving his conditional promise, or in retracting it. He was not accustomedto speak without thinking what he was going to say. He was prompted by a worthy motive when he made the proposition to go to them, and an equally goodmotive swayedhim when he resolvednot to go. He tells them that his mind was not of the “yea and nay” order, but when he said “yea,” he meant it, his yea was yea, and if he said “nay,” he meant it, and his nay was nay. This remark led the apostle further to say that the Gospelwhich he preachedwas not of the “yea and nay” kind. It was something certain, settled, positive, fixed, it was not a variable Gospel, nor a deceptive Gospel. It was not a chameleonGospel, whichchangedits coloraccording to the light which fell upon it, but it was a clearand distinct Gospel, given in all sincerity by the truthful and truth loving Saviorwho never used words in a double sense, but who said what He meant, and meant what He said. It was by this process ofreasoning that the apostle was led to the statementcontained in our text concerning Christ, “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” That is now to be the theme of our meditation. I. The first thing I notice in the text is, THE DIGNITY OF THE PROMISES. 2 All the Promises Sermon#2657 2 Volume 46 Notice the apostle’s words, “Forallthe promises of God in him are yea.” These promises were all made according to the purpose of His own will. We sometimes read, or hear, or speak ofthe promises written in God’s Word, but do not give them as much credit as if they were the promises of a friend, or of our father, or our brother. If we valued them more, we should believe them better. We have many proverbs to remind us what poor and frail things the promises of men are, but those of which Paul writes are “the promises of God.” Men often change their minds, even the apostle did that, and therefore he was wise to try to take the thoughts of those, to whom he was writing, off from the promises even of an apostle, which were liable to change, and which might very properly not be carried out because ofaltered circumstances,and
- 66. lead them awaytothe promises of God, which are unfailing and unchangeable, and are always fulfilled to His glory and to our profit. We little know what solemn things we are trifling with when we saythat we cannot believe a certain promise. What! Has it come to this—that God’s own children cannot believe Him? Is it so, that we, who saythat “we love him because he first loved us,” yet add to that declaration, “but there are some of His promises which we cannotbelieve”? I am afraid that we talk far too flippantly about our unbelief, and that we seek to shelter one another in it, instead of whipping ourselves out of it. To be unbelieving may be painful, but there is a more serious considerationthan that, for it is sinful, it is heinous to the lastdegree when we feel—much more when we express—anyincredulity with regard to “the promises of God.” Just turn that thought over in your minds for a minute or two, and see whether it does not crimson your face with shame to think that you should have had any suspicionabout the fulfillment of promises made by “God, that cannotlie.” Even in the case ofa man, a promise is something which comes from him, and yet, in a sense, which still remains with him. He cannot speak ofpromise, and let it blow awaywith the wind. It is his promise after he has uttered it, and those to whom it was given can bring it back to him, and say, “Thatis your promise, will you not fulfill it?” If a man repudiates his own pledged word, he does, in fact, repudiate the fruit of himself, the outgoing of his own life, and every promise of God partakes ofHis nature, there is in it something divine, something which comes distinctly from God, and which He will continue to own as His. Though it may have been spokentwo or three thousand years ago, or longer than that, yet it is still His promise, and part and parcelof Himself. Well, then, if God will own it as His promise, shall I, to whom it is given in infinite mercy, doubt whether it is His promise or not? And shall I even venture to go further than that, and knowing it to be His promise, shall I begin to question how He can fulfill it, or whether He will fulfill it or not? God forbid! The dignity of the promise must not be insulted by our doubting it. Kindly observe the position of the promise, which is a very singular one. It is a kind of link betweenthe divine thought and the divine act. It is not at all a necessarylink so far as God is concerned, but it is often a most necessaryand consoling link to us. There is the eternalpurpose that has ever been in God’s secretmind, and His promise is the shadow which that purpose casts upon the revealedpage. It is the divine decree made manifest, and it stands there, bright and sparkling, betweenthe decree, which our eyes cannot and dare not look upon, and the blessed fulfillment which is to be our joy and delight forever. I confess that I cannot think of God’s eternal purposes without the utmost awe and reverence, for, to me, there is something very solemn and impressive about them. I know that
- 67. some people speakas though they would trample them in the mire if they could, but wheneverI hear a word againstthe promises, the providences, the decrees, andthe purposes of God, I feelinclined to do as a Negro slave did, under certain circumstances, in the presence of his master. While waiting upon his master, who frequently took the name of God in vain, and blasphemed it most terribly in his cursing, the black man bowed his head. His master askedhim why he did so, and he replied that it was because his soul was full of trembling at the very name of God, and he wished to do Him reverence, evenwhile He was being blasphemed and insulted. Sermon #2657 All the Promises 3 Volume 46 3 So, wheneverI hear or read of anyone speaking or writing againstthe divine decrees, Ifeel anxious at once to bow my head, and to prostrate myself in homage before that eternal mind which knows no new thought—for God knew all things from the beginning—and to adore that infinite wisdom which has planned everything from the flitting of a sparrow to the flight of the archangel. It is very wonderful to me to think of a promise in the Scriptures being virtually the manifestation of God’s everlasting purposes. I might compare the purpose to God Himself—invisible, and the promise to the Incarnate God, who was born at Bethlehem, and who came to earth to be seen of men. Think yet againof the promise of God, and you will see how a sense of its dignity grows upon you while you are meditating upon it. Consider, next, that the truth of God is irrevocably bound up with His promise. If a man says, “Sucha thing shall be done,” he ought to do it if it is in his power. We have no right to break promises that we have made, we feel that, if we do, men will learn to distrust us, and soonwill care nothing at all for our promises. But, beloved—and we speak with the utmost reverence concerning the Most High—His characterfor truthfulness would be lostif His promises were not kept, and while it would be an awful loss to us to miss what He has promised, it would be a far greaterloss to Him to lose His truthfulness. We rejoice that, as a matter of fact, this is a thing which can never happen. All things except this are possible with God, but it is not possible for Him to be God and yet to fail in the fulfillment of His promises. The two ideas will not run togetherat all. If He is God, He must be true to His truth, and He will be, so, when I read a promise in His Word, I read something which is as certain as a fact already accomplished, since, if it were not to come to pass, God’s glory would suffer an eclipse, and His veracity would be impugned, and that cannever be. Nor is the truth of God the only attribute which would suffer if He failed to fulfill His promise, for His immutability would also be put in jeopardy. If He makes
- 68. a promise, andyet does not fulfill it in due time, then He must have changed, the motives which led to the making of the promise have now no influence over Him, and He has become something different from what He was when He made the promise. But God must be immutable. It cannotbe possible for Him to change for the better, for He is infinitely good, and certainly, He cannot change for the worse, for, if He did, then He would be something less than He might be, and so He would not be God at all. Change is impossible to Him, He can never change His will, and His promise, as one of the most solemn declarations ofHis will, must be fulfilled when He has once made it. Surely, no one of us would wish or dare to deny either the truthfulness or the unchangeablenessofGod. Further, His power is bound up with His promise. Shall it ever be said that God failed to keepHis promise because He could not keepit, or because He miscalculatedHis resources, orHis arm waxedshort, or the greatdeeps of His eternal Godheadbecame dried up? No, that cannot be, for what He has promised He will always be able to perform. So, then, if we slight the promises of God, we slight also His truth, His immutability, and His power. And we also seriously compromise His mercy and His love. It was love that moved Him to give the promise. He might have bestowedthe blessing without promising to do so, and that would have been a gracious proof of His love, but because the promise has a sweet, consoling powerin it, He has been pleasedto give it to us as a further proof of His love, and if He does not grant the boon at once when He promises it, the delay is all for loving reasons, but having given the promise, He must keepit because ofHis love. His love must be changedif it does not constrain Him to fulfill what it causedHim to promise, but that can never be, and we must not—we dare not—castsuch a slight upon the promise of God as to imagine, for a moment, that it can remain unfulfilled. So much, then, concerning the dignity of the promises. II. Still keeping closelyto the text, I want you to notice, next, THE RANGE OF THE PROMISES, forPaul here speaks of“all the promises of God.” There is a prospectfor you, “All the promises.” There are very many of them, and they are found in both the Old and the New Testaments.There was one given at the gates ofthe Garden of Eden, very 4 All the Promises Sermon#2657 4 Volume 46 near the commencementof human history. There is another right at the end of the Revelation, “SurelyI come quickly.” The Bible is a Book of precious promises, all the way we have to travel, they seemto be like a series of stepping stones acrossthe streamof time, and we may march from one promise to another, and never wet our feet all the way from earth to heaven, if
- 69. we do butknow how to keepour eyes open, and to find the right promise to step upon. “All the promises,” the Old Testamentones as wellas those in the New Testament, are sure and steadfast. The conditionalpromises—ifwe believe, and if we repent—Godwill certainly fulfill, and the unconditional ones—the promises of the everlasting covenant, in which He pledges Himself to give men repentance, and to give them new hearts and right spirits—He will keepthem too. God will fulfill all temporal promises. Breadshall be given you, and water shall be assuredunto you, if you are the Lord’s children. He will keepHis promises about temporal affairs as wellas those which concerneverlasting joys and blessings. “No goodthing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” You may speak ofthe promises in any way that you please, and then you may say that the Lord will keepthem all, you may pick out the promise to the prisoner, the promise to the sinner, the promise to the backslider, the promise to the doubting one, the promise to the aged, the promise to the young, the promise to her that halts, the promise to the barren woman, the promise to the strong, the promise to those who have full assurance offaith, the promise to those who love the Lord, the promise to those who delight themselves in the Lord, and then you may confidently declare, concerning all these promises to all sorts and conditions of people, that the Lord will surely keepevery one of them. “All the promises.” Why, here is a grand granary full! Who can sort them all out? Promises of pardon to the seeking sinner, promises of justification to the believing child, promises of sanctificationto him who is struggling againstsin, promises of the supply of all kinds of spiritual food to the flock of Christ, promises of guidance, promises of preservation, promises of holy education, promises of peace and joy, promises of hope, promises of the sustenance of our love, promises for death, promises for judgment, promises for glory, promises that reachto all eternity. “All the promises.” What a range of vision this expressionopens up! Go forth presently, and lift up your eyes, and gaze upon the stars, see whether you cannumber them all, do they not far exceedall your powers of numeration? Yet, if you could count the stars, and weighthem in scales,and tabulate the measure of their light, you could not count the promises of God, or estimate their true value, or know how infinitely precious is the light divine which streams from them into a believing soul. If God does not fulfill a single promise to me for the next fifty years, I shall be perfectly satisfiedto live on the promises themselves, if my faith shall but be sustainedby His grace. I may fairly talk thus, for you would say, “I do not need a single penny to spend, as long as everI live, if I canbut always have plenty of £5 notes, I shall never care if I do not see a sovereignagain, so long as I can always have the promise of the Bank of England to pay me on demand all that I need.” So let it
- 70. be with thepromises of God. Men’s promises are but breath, they would never feed us, but God’s promises can satisfy us, for they are the substance of the things hoped for, and faith, the evidence of things not seen, rejoices to see that which is invisible, to lay hold of that which it cannot touch, and to feed upon that which, as yet, it cannottaste. Faith works wonders. It enables a man to project himself right into eternity. He sits down, and sighs, and sorrows, andthen he says to himself, “This will never do, I will trust in the Lord,” and in an instant, by faith he walks the goldenstreets, and sings the everlasting songs. He is not obliged to live in this narrow sphere of time and sense, for, by faith, he spreads his wings, and like the lark, he ascends and sings. He soars far more rapidly than even the eagle, and finds himself already enjoying the things which Godhas prepared for them that love Him, and so he is happy in the Lord. III. Now I must turn to my third point, which is in the very heart of the text, “Forall the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen.” These words teachus THE STABILITY OF THE PROMISES. Sermon #2657 All the Promises 5 Volume 46 5 The promises of God are very firm, for first, they are settled on an everlasting basis, for they are promises in Christ. As I look at the text, I can see two words leaping up out of it, and as I look at it again, I see the same two words leaping up again, “in Him.” “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen.” There is a greatthought which I cannot fully open up to you now, you must lie awake tonight, and think over it, and pray overit, “All the promises of God in him.” What a greatChrist you have, to have “all the promises of God” within Himself! The range of the promises seems to be infinite, and yet Christ is greatenough to be the circumference that shuts them all in. Do rejoice in this great truth, that “all the promises of God” are in Christ Jesus ourLord. And in Christ they are said to be “Yea.” Thatis a Greek word, so this is a message to Gentiles. “And in him Amen.” That is a Hebrew word, and is therefore for the Jews. You may have noticed how, wheneverthe Holy Spirit wishes to impress any truth upon us with more than usual solemnity, He uses two languages, as in the case of“Abba, Father.” In this way, all the saints of God, whether they be Jews orGentiles, may have their portion of meat in due season. “All the promises of God in him are “yea.” Thatis, they are certain. “And in him Amen.” That is, they are accomplished. We may say, after every promise of God, “Yea, so it is. Amen, so let it be.” There is but a slight variation in the meaning of the words, but it is enough to let us see that there is no tautologyhere, not even if the words are translated, “All the promises of God are yea,” that is, true, “and they are
- 71. Amen,” that is,they shall be accomplishedin Christ Jesus. The stability of the promises in Christ is establishedbeyond all hazard, first, because Christis God’s Witness. If anyone asks, “DidGod make this promise?” Christ comes forward, and says, “Yes, I heard Him say it.” Christ is “the faithful and true Witness.” He bears witness of God and for God to the sons of men, and He sets His sealto every divine promise, and certifies it with His “Yea and Amen.” Next, the promises are sure in Christ, because He is God’s Representative. He is always doing the Father’s will, even as He has done it in the past. When He came to earth, and died upon the cross, He accomplished the work of redemption upon which God’s heart was set, and He is still doing the Father’s will. Whatever Jesus has said, God has said, for He speaks the words of God. The Father sentHim into the world as His Representative, and He spoke not merely His own words, but the words of the Father who sent Him. Then, next, Jesus is the Surety of the covenant. The promise was at first made to Adam. If Adam keeps the command of God, and does not touch the forbidden fruit, he and those whom he represents shall have all manner of goodthings. But Adam transgressedthe law of the Lord, so that covenantwas made void. The secondcovenantis on this wise. If Jesus Christ, the second Adam, will do this and that, then all whom He represents shall have the blessings guaranteedin the covenant. The Lord Jesus has done all that He agreedto do, He has kept the law, and so has honored it, and He has also died, and borne the sentence ofthe law. He has thus offered both an active and a passive obedience to the law of God, and now all the promises of God must be kept to Christ, for they are “Yea and Amen” in Him. Take those great promises in the fifty-third of Isaiah, “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shallmy righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out His soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercessionfor the transgressors.” These are promises, first to the Head, and then to us the members of His mystical body, first to the secondAdam, and then to all who, by a living faith, are included in His federalheadship. So the promises are “Yea and Amen” in Him. And as long as Jesus Christ lives, they are also “Yea and Amen” in this sense—thatHe is seeing to their being carriedout. He is interceding before the throne for us that the promises of God may meet our distresses. O brethren, all the promises must be true in Christ, because Godsparednot His own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all, and having given Him, will He not, with Him, also freely give us all
- 72. 6 All thePromises Sermon#2657 6 Volume 46 things? If God had meant to run back from any promise, He would surely have run back from the promise to give His only-begotten Son, but having fulfilled that, what promise is there that He will ever break? Moreover, in the gift of Christ, He has virtually and really given us all things, for if Christ is yours, all things are yours. All things are in Christ, so, having Him, you possessall. There is no desire of your spirit, or need of your nature, that shall remain unsatisfied when once you have Christ as yours. You have heaven, and earth, and all things that are or ever shall be, encompassedin that blessed One whose very name is “the Amen, the faithful and true Witness.” O beloved, rejoice with all your heart that every promise of God is sure in Christ Jesus to all His true seed! IV. Now let us considerthe lastwords of the text, “Forall the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” This impression teaches us THE RESULT OF THE PROMISES. So, then, dear friends, the promises of God are His glory. There is no pretended god that has ever been supposed to make promises like those of our God. Turn to the Koran, and see what Mohammed has promised. Ah, me! What a beggarlyarray of promises does he set before his followers!Turn to Brahma and Buddha, and read all the so-calledsacredbooks writtenby their priests, and see what their gods are said to have promised. You can put the essence ofit all into an eggshell, and not see it even then. But our God has promised more than heavenand earth can hold. He has promised to give Himself to His people. He is the greatPromiser—the mighty Promiser. I set the promises of God in comparison and contrastwith all the promises that were ever made in connectionwith all false systems of religionunder heaven, and unhesitatingly declare that there are none that cancompare for an instant with the promises of the MostHigh. It was greatlyto God’s glory to make those promises all sure, for they all depended at first upon the condition that Christ should obey the Father’s will. But He has done it, and oh, what a glory it is to God that “He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoeverbelievethin him should not perish, but have everlasting life”! The gift of the Redeemer, the life of the Redeemer, the death of the Redeemer, the intercessionofthe Redeemer, the making the promises sure—all this is greatlyto the glory of God. And now it is to the glory of God to keepevery promise that He has made. There is not one which, if it were broken, would redound to His praise or increase His honor. Nay, and there is not one but, when it is kept, reflects fresh honor upon Him, and brings still further renown to His ever-blessed name. If I had time, I would enlarge upon all these points, but as it is already
- 73. past our usualhour for closing the service, I must end my discourse with a brief reference to the last words in our text, “unto the glory of God by us.” While I was thinking earnestly overmy text, I fancied that the two little words, “by us,” seemedto spoil that grand word “glory” and that greater word “God.” “To the glory of God”—“byus,” what a contrast!It is even more marked than in that old story of the organ-blowerwho would persistin saying, “We did it,” when all that he did was just to pump the air into the organ. Must we be mentioned at all? Is it not a pity to bring us in? But as I turned the subject over in my mind, I thought, “Oh, no, no, it is quite right to bring us in here!” Now look. Godwants to have the glory of being merciful, yes, but He cannot have that glory unless there is a sinner somewhere to whom He can show mercy, a sinner is an essentialpart of the whole business. Suppose that the king, who made the greatsupper, had said to his servants, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in,” and that they had come back to him and said, “There is not a single creature under the hedges or in the highways, there is not even a solitarybeggaranywhere about the streets orlanes of the city.” Then he could not have had the feast, whateverdainties he might have prepared, if he had not anybody to eat them. It would have been a mournful business to have the oxen and fatlings killed, and heaped upon the tables, yet nobody to sit down to partake of them. Even the king, if he is to have honor, must be dependent for once on the beggars in the highways and hedges. Is not this wonderful? Godwants to show His power in pardoning my sin, but He cannotdo it if I have no sin to be pardoned, and if I do not come to Him to be pardoned, and do not ask for His mercy, then it lies like dead capital never spent. The Sermon #2657 All the Promises 7 Volume 46 7 Lord delights to help the weak, it is His joy to do it, but suppose that there is no weak personanywhere, what is to happen then? Ah! but I think I hear the weak souls crying out, “By us! By us! ‘To the glory of God by us.’ He delights to help the poor and needy, and He cannotdo so if there are not some poor and needy ones for Him to help, so, when we seek His aid, it is ‘to the glory of God by us.’” And the Lord delights to make His strength perfectin our weakness.I think I hear Paul crying out, and He is the man who wrote these words, “by us,”—“Godis glorified by my weakness.”And I hear many of you, who are trying to serve your Lord and Master, saying, “Ah, then! that is why such weak ones as we feelourselves to be, are used, ‘to the glory of God by us.’” Come along, then, all you who need God’s mercy, you have laid hold of one of His promises, and feel that you need and must have all that it includes.
- 74. With utmost reverencewould I saythat God Himself cannot be glorified by the promise without you. If He intends to feedthe hungry, then the hungry are essentialto the accomplishment of His purpose. If He would clothe the naked, then there must be nakedones for Him to clothe. Is there not a mine of comfort here for you who have been almost without hope? I trust that some of you poor lostones will say in your hearts, if you do not utter it with your voices, “Are we really essentialto God’s glory? Does Godneed our poverty, and our sinfulness, and our nothingness, in order that He may, through them, display the greatness ofHis grace?Thenwe will certainly come to Him just as we are.” Do so, I pray you. Come!Come!! Come!!! May the Holy Spirit, by His omnipotent grace, draw you now, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake!Amen. CHARLES SIMEON THE STABILITY OF THE PROMISES 2 Corinthians 1:20. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. MANKIND in general discover much versatility in their spirit and conduct. They form purposes and rescind them according as they are influenced by carnal hopes or fears; but the Gospel teaches us to lay our plans with wisdom, and to execute them with firmness. A light, fickle, wavering mind, if not incompatible with, is at least unworthy of, the Christian character. St. Paul has been accused of “lightness” for not paying his intended visit to Corinth. It is probable too (as appears by his apology) that his enemies had thrown out insinuations against his doctrine also, as though it could not be depended upon. He thought such charges extremely injurious to his person and ministry: he therefore first affirms that his doctrines had been uniform, and next appeals to God, that there had been the same uniformity in his conduct also [Note: ver. 23. He assures them that he had delayed his journey, not from fickleness of mind, but from tenderness to them.]. In speaking of his doctrine he digresses a little from his subject; but, what he says of the promises, is worthy of peculiar attention. It suggests to us the following important observations: I. All the promises of God are made to us in Christ Jesus— God has “given to us exceeding great and precious promises”— [He has engaged to bestow all which can conduce to our temporal welfare: all too, which can promote our spiritual advancement. To this he has added all the glory and felicity of heaven itself. Such are the benefits annexed by God himself to real godliness [Note: 1 Timothy 4:8.].] But all these are given to us only in Christ Jesus— [Man, the instant he had sinned, was exposed to the wrath of God; nor could he any longer have a claim on the promises made to him in his state of innocence; but Christ became the head and representative of God’s elect: with him God was pleased to enter into covenant for us [Note: Hebrews 8:6.], and to give us a promise of eternal life in him [Note: 2 Timothy 1:1.]. Our original election of God, our adoption into his family, with every blessing consequent upon
- 75. these, were confirmedto us in him [Note: Ephesians 1:3 to Ephesians 5:11.]: hence, in the text, it is twice said, that the promises are in him; and, in another place, that they were made before the existence of any human being [Note: Titus 1:2.]: even when the covenant was apparently made with Abraham, Christ was the true seed in whom alone it was confirmed [Note: Galatians 3:16- 17.].] From this circumstance they derive all their stability. II. In him they are all firm and immutable— The terms “Yea and Amen” import steadfastness and immutability. Now the promises cannot fail unless they be either revoked by God, or forfeited by man; but God will not suffer them to fail by either of these means— He himself will not revoke them— [Some of his promises are absolute and others conditional: the conditional are suspended on the performance of something by man: the absolute are made without respect to any thing to he done by us [Note: Such are the declarations respecting the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, together with the consequent calling of the Gentiles, and the salvation of all that from eternity were given to Christ. John 17:6.]. If the former fail, it is not so properly a breach of promise, as an execution of a threatening implied in it [Note: This is the true import of what God says, Numbers 14:34.]: the latter never have failed in any one instance; nor can one jot or tittle of them ever fail to all eternity. This is declared in various passages of Holy Scripture [Note: 1 Samuel 12:22. Isaiah 54:10. Jeremiah 31:35-37; Jeremiah 33:25-26.]. God’s word, like his nature, has “no variableness or shadow of turning:” he confirmed his promises with an oath, in order that we might he more assured of the immutability of his counsel [Note: Hebrews 6:17.]: hence it is expressly said, that “the promise is sure to all the seed [Note: Romans 4:16.].”] Nor will he suffer his people to forfeit their interest in them— [Doubtless his people, as free agents, are capable of apostatizing from the truth: yea, they are even bent to backslide from him [Note: Hosea 11:7.]; and, if left to themselves, they would inevitably fall and perish [Note: Isaiah 10:4.]: hence they are bidden to take heed lest they come short of the promised blessings [Note: Hebrews 4:1.]. St. Paul himself felt the need of much labour and self-denial to prevent his becoming a cast-away [Note: 1 Corinthians 9:27.]. Nevertheless these truths are not at all inconsistent with the doctrine insisted on: it is by the fear of falling, that God keeps us from falling [Note: Philippians 2:12-13.]; and he will keep us by his own power unto final salvation [Note: 1 Peter 1:5.]. Of this St. Paul was as confident as of any truth whatever [Note: Philippians 1:6.]; nor is there any other truth more abundantly confirmed in Scripture [Note: Romans 11:29. John 10:28-29.]. God will indeed punish his people for their declensions [Note: Psalms 89:30-32.]; but, instead of casting them off, he will reclaim them from their errors [Note: Psalms 89:33-35.]: if it were not thus, not one only, but all of those, who had been given to Christ, might perish. God however will effectually prevent this [Note: Matthew 18:14. Jeremiah 32:38-41.]; and the weakest of his people may join in the Apostle’s triumph [Note: Romans 8:38-39.].] This doctrine is far from being a matter of speculation only: III. In their accomplishment God is glorified, and the ends of our ministry are answered— The promises, as recorded in the Scriptures, are the foundation of our hopes: but it is by their accomplishment alone that the effects attributed to them are produced. In that,
- 76. 1. God isglorified— [Every perfection of the Deity is interested in the accomplishment of his word: the mercy and love of God have given us the promises: his truth and faithfulness are pledged to fulfil them: his almighty power is engaged to execute whatever his goodness has given us reason to expect. Were his promises to fail of accomplishment, these perfections would be all dishonoured; but when they are fulfilled, these perfections are all glorified. Justice itself is made to harmonize with truth and mercy [Note: Psalms 85:10.], and matter is furnished for endless praise and adoration.] 2. The ends of our ministry are answered— [The great ends of our ministry are to convert, edify, and comfort immortal souls. In pursuance of these, we set before men those promises which are most suited to their respective conditions; and assure them that their affiance in those promises shall bring them the blessings they desire. When therefore the contrite are brought to experience rest in Jesus, when the afflicted are comforted, the backsliding reclaimed, or the wavering established, then the great ends of our ministry are so far answered with respect to them. The truth of God in his promises is then made to appear; the benefits contained in them are enjoyed by our fellow-creatures; and our labours receive their richest recompence.] Application— [The Scripture speaks of some as “heirs of promise,” and others as “strangers from the covenant of promise.” Let us inquire to which of these characters we belong. Have we renounced every other hope, and rested simply on the promises made to us in Christ? And are we living in the earnest expectation of their full accomplishment? Have we so embraced them as to shew that we are seeking another country [Note: Hebrews 11:13-14.]? Let us not mistake our true and proper character. If we be strangers from the covenant of promise, we are without Christ, and without hope [Note: Ephesians 2:12.]. The threatenings, and not the promises, belong to us, and they will infallibly be executed upon us in due season. O that we might now flee for refuge to the hope set before us! But if we be “heirs of promise,” happy are we beyond all expression. Every promise of God, temporal, spiritual, or eternal, is made to us. Let every one then of this description be filled with consolation [Note: Hebrews 6:18.]: let them also be followers of those, who now inherit the promises [Note: Hebrews 6:12.]. May it never be said of them, that they glorify God by their faith, but dishonour him by their works! The promises are given, not merely to save, but to sanctify, the soul [Note: 2 Peter 1:4.]. Treasure up then, brethren, those inestimable pledges of God’s love, and let them operate according to the direction given you [Note: 2 Corinthians 7:1.].] ROB SALVATO THE STABILITY OF THE PROMISES 2 Corinthians 1:20. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.
- 77. MANKIND in generaldiscover much versatility in their spirit and conduct. They form purposes and rescind them according as they are influenced by carnal hopes or fears; but the Gospel teaches us to lay our plans with wisdom, and to execute them with firmness. A light, fickle, wavering mind, if not incompatible with, is at least unworthy of, the Christian character. St. Paul has been accused of “lightness” for not paying his intended visit to Corinth. It is probable too (as appears by his apology) that his enemies had thrown out insinuations against his doctrine also, as though it could not be depended upon. He thought such charges extremely injurious to his person and ministry: he therefore first affirms that his doctrines had been uniform, and next appeals to God, that there had been the same uniformity in his conduct also [Note: ver. 23. He assures them that he had delayed his journey, not from fickleness of mind, but from tenderness to them.]. In speaking of his doctrine he digresses a little from his subject; but, what he says of the promises, is worthy of peculiar attention. It suggests to us the following important observations: I. All the promises of God are made to us in Christ Jesus— God has “given to us exceeding great and precious promises”— [He has engaged to bestow all which can conduce to our temporal welfare: all too, which can promote our spiritual advancement. To this he has added all the glory and felicity of heaven itself. Such are the benefits annexed by God himself to real godliness [Note: 1 Timothy 4:8.].] But all these are given to us only in Christ Jesus— [Man, the instant he had sinned, was exposed to the wrath of God; nor could he any longer have a claim on the promises made to him in his state of innocence; but Christ became the head and representative of God’s elect: with him God was pleased to enter into covenant for us [Note: Hebrews 8:6.], and to give us a promise of eternal life in him [Note: 2 Timothy 1:1.]. Our original election of God, our adoption into his family, with every blessing consequent upon these, were confirmed to us in him [Note: Ephesians 1:3 to Ephesians 5:11.]: hence, in the text, it is twice said, that the promises are in him; and, in another place, that they were made before the existence of any human being [Note: Titus 1:2.]: even when the covenant was apparently made with Abraham, Christ was the true seed in whom alone it was confirmed [Note: Galatians 3:16- 17.].] From this circumstance they derive all their stability. II. In him they are all firm and immutable— The terms “Yea and Amen” import steadfastness and immutability. Now the promises cannot fail unless they be either revoked by God, or forfeited by man; but God will not suffer them to fail by either of these means— He himself will not revoke them— [Some of his promises are absolute and others conditional: the conditional are suspended on the performance of something by man: the absolute are made without respect to any thing to he done by us [Note: Such are the declarations respecting the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, together with the consequent calling of the Gentiles, and the salvation of all that from eternity were given to Christ. John 17:6.]. If the former fail, it is not so properly a breach of promise, as an execution of a threatening implied in it [Note: This is the true import of what God says, Numbers 14:34.]: the latter never have failed in any one instance; nor can one jot or tittle of them ever fail to all eternity. This is declared in various passages of Holy Scripture [Note: 1 Samuel 12:22. Isaiah 54:10. Jeremiah 31:35-37; Jeremiah 33:25-26.]. God’s word, like
- 78. his nature, has“no variableness or shadow of turning:” he confirmed his promises with an oath, in order that we might he more assured of the immutability of his counsel [Note: Hebrews 6:17.]: hence it is expressly said, that “the promise is sure to all the seed [Note: Romans 4:16.].”] Nor will he suffer his people to forfeit their interest in them— [Doubtless his people, as free agents, are capable of apostatizing from the truth: yea, they are even bent to backslide from him [Note: Hosea 11:7.]; and, if left to themselves, they would inevitably fall and perish [Note: Isaiah 10:4.]: hence they are bidden to take heed lest they come short of the promised blessings [Note: Hebrews 4:1.]. St. Paul himself felt the need of much labour and self-denial to prevent his becoming a cast-away [Note: 1 Corinthians 9:27.]. Nevertheless these truths are not at all inconsistent with the doctrine insisted on: it is by the fear of falling, that God keeps us from falling [Note: Philippians 2:12-13.]; and he will keep us by his own power unto final salvation [Note: 1 Peter 1:5.]. Of this St. Paul was as confident as of any truth whatever [Note: Philippians 1:6.]; nor is there any other truth more abundantly confirmed in Scripture [Note: Romans 11:29. John 10:28-29.]. God will indeed punish his people for their declensions [Note: Psalms 89:30-32.]; but, instead of casting them off, he will reclaim them from their errors [Note: Psalms 89:33-35.]: if it were not thus, not one only, but all of those, who had been given to Christ, might perish. God however will effectually prevent this [Note: Matthew 18:14. Jeremiah 32:38-41.]; and the weakest of his people may join in the Apostle’s triumph [Note: Romans 8:38-39.].] This doctrine is far from being a matter of speculation only: III. In their accomplishment God is glorified, and the ends of our ministry are answered— The promises, as recorded in the Scriptures, are the foundation of our hopes: but it is by their accomplishment alone that the effects attributed to them are produced. In that, 1. God is glorified— [Every perfection of the Deity is interested in the accomplishment of his word: the mercy and love of God have given us the promises: his truth and faithfulness are pledged to fulfil them: his almighty power is engaged to execute whatever his goodness has given us reason to expect. Were his promises to fail of accomplishment, these perfections would be all dishonoured; but when they are fulfilled, these perfections are all glorified. Justice itself is made to harmonize with truth and mercy [Note: Psalms 85:10.], and matter is furnished for endless praise and adoration.] 2. The ends of our ministry are answered— [The great ends of our ministry are to convert, edify, and comfort immortal souls. In pursuance of these, we set before men those promises which are most suited to their respective conditions; and assure them that their affiance in those promises shall bring them the blessings they desire. When therefore the contrite are brought to experience rest in Jesus, when the afflicted are comforted, the backsliding reclaimed, or the wavering established, then the great ends of our ministry are so far answered with respect to them. The truth of God in his promises is then made to appear; the benefits contained in them are enjoyed by our fellow-creatures; and our labours receive their richest recompence.] Application—
- 79. [The Scripture speaksof some as “heirs of promise,” and others as “strangers from the covenant of promise.” Let us inquire to which of these characters we belong. Have we renounced every other hope, and rested simply on the promises made to us in Christ? And are we living in the earnest expectation of their full accomplishment? Have we so embraced them as to shew that we are seeking another country [Note: Hebrews 11:13-14.]? Let us not mistake our true and proper character. If we be strangers from the covenant of promise, we are without Christ, and without hope [Note: Ephesians 2:12.]. The threatenings, and not the promises, belong to us, and they will infallibly be executed upon us in due season. O that we might now flee for refuge to the hope set before us! But if we be “heirs of promise,” happy are we beyond all expression. Every promise of God, temporal, spiritual, or eternal, is made to us. Let every one then of this description be filled with consolation [Note: Hebrews 6:18.]: let them also be followers of those, who now inherit the promises [Note: Hebrews 6:12.]. May it never be said of them, that they glorify God by their faith, but dishonour him by their works! The promises are given, not merely to save, but to sanctify, the soul [Note: 2 Peter 1:4.]. Treasure up then, brethren, those inestimable pledges of God’s love, and let them operate according to the direction given you [Note: 2 Corinthians 7:1.].] Believing the Promises II Corinthians 1:20 For the next few weeks we want to look at the topic of "Believing the Promises". It is one thing to know the promises of God, and yet another to actually believe them! We will never be all that God wants us to be until we become 'promise believers'. In our text this morning we find that all of God's promises answer yes in Christ; all of God's promises are based upon and find their fulfillment in Christ. Peter uses three words to describe the promises of God. Note: "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." cf 2Pe. 1:4 1. Exceeding = beyond natural limits or supernatural. 2. Great = large, surpassing all others. 3. Precious = of such great value that a suitable price is hard to estimate. What is a promise? An oral or written agreement to do or not to do something. To give a basis for expectation. God's promises are graciously bestowed, secured by negotiation. There are over 3000 promises for us to claim in God's Word. What we must do is learn to depend more upon His promises to us than our promises to Him. We have all heard of 'foxhole religion'. Our promises to God are not very valuable, but His promises to us are exceeding, great, and precious. I. Guiding Principles for Believing the Promises of God. A. We must understand that every- thing we do in our Christian life is based upon faith in the promises of God.
- 80. 1. Note: Gal.2:20,"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." 2. The life that we live right now, is by faith...in the promises of God 3. When we get saved it is by believing the promise of God. (note: Ro. 10:13) 4. We read our Bibles, pray, and tithe because God has promised to bless us! B. All God's promises depend upon God's faithfulness and power to fulfill His promises. 1. If I promised Jerry Brummett that I would go to work for him (so he could have some time off) at the garage fixing problems with those diesel trucks; my promise would be worthless. 2. He knows that I could not follow through on that promise. 3. I would be guilty of lying to him. 4. We have to ask ourselves two questions concerning this principle. a. Is God faithful? or Does He always tell the truth? b. Is God able? or Does He have enough power to keep His promise? c. Note: He. 10:23, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)" d. Note: Jer. 32:17, "Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:" C. A promise has no value unless it is made to someone. God has chosen to make His promises to us, His children. 1. "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises:" 2 Pe. 1:4a 2. God's promises are not general in nature for just everyone; they are for those who are born again! 3. God makes His promises to us! D. God's promises are all true, but some of them only become effectual to those who believe them. 1. Promises that are true regardless of whether we believe them. a. Gal. 6:8a, "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption;" b. Ro. 8:13a, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die:" c. 1Ti 6:7, "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." 2. Some of God's promises are only become effectual when we believe them. a. The example of prayer.
- 81. b. Jas 1:6-7,"But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord." c. Mt. 21:22, "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." d. Example of tithing. e. Mal. 3:10, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." E. No Christian really believes the promises of God until he acts upon them by faith. Faith and works are inseparable. 1. Note: Jas. 2:17, "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." 2. We can say, "I believe the promises of God!", but if we never act upon them we don't really believe them. 3. God's promises are of no value to us until we act upon them! F. God's promises are all conditional. 1. Note: Jn. 14:13-14 ,"And what- soever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." 2. That doesn't just mean that we tack on "in Jesus name" at the end of our prayer. 3. It means that we are praying in the will of God...we are praying as Jesus would pray. 4. Note: Lu. 6:38, "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." 5. The condition is that we give! Conclusion: We must learn to believe God's exceeding great and precious promises. It will change the way we pray and it will change the way we live! Let's determine to become promise believers! http://www.brandonweb.com/sermons/sermonpages/2c orinthians6.htm 2 Corinthians 1:18 But as God is true; rather, but God is faithful, whatever man may be (1 Corinthians 1:9; 1 Corinthians 10:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:24; 2 Thessalonians 3:3; 1 John 1:9). Our word towards
- 82. you, etc. Theverse should be rendered, But God is faithful, because (faithful herein, that) our preaching to you proved itself to be not yea and may. Whatever you may say of my plans and my conduct, there was one thing which involved an indubitable "yea," namely, my preaching to you. In that, at any rate, there was nothing capricious, nothing variable, nothing vacillating. St. Paul, in a manner characteristic to his moods of deepest emotion, "goes off at a word." The Corinthians talked of his "yea" and "nay" as though one was little better than the other, and neither could be depended on; well, at any rate, one thing, and that the most essential, was as sure as the faithfulness of God. 2 Corinthians 1:19 For. This is a proof of what he has just said. His preaching was as firm as a rock; for, tried by time, it had proved itself a changeless" yea," being a preaching of Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. By me and Silvanus and Timotheus. They are mentioned because they had been his companions in the first visit to Corinth (Acts 18:5), and he wishes to show that his preaching of Christ had never wavered. "Silvanus" (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1) is the "Silas" of Acts 15:22. He disappears from the New Testament in this verse, unless he be the "Silvanus" of 1 Peter 5:12. Was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. "Became not (proved not to be) yes and no (in one breath, as it were, and therefore utterly untrustworthy), but in him there has been a yea." The perfect, "has become," means that in him the everlasting" yes" has proved itself valid, and still continues to be a changeless affirmation (Hebrews 13:8). 2 Corinthians 1:20 For all the promises of God in him are yea; rather, For so many as be the promises of God, in him is the yea. All the promises of God find in him their unchangeable fulfilment. He was "a minister to confirm the promises" alike to the Jews and the Gentiles (Romans 15:8, Romans 15:9); and "the premise of the eternal inheritance" can only be fulfilled in him (Hebrews 9:15). And in him Amen. The true reading is," Wherefore by him also is the Amen to God, uttered by us to his glory" ( ,א A, B, C, F, G, etc.). In Christ is the "yea" of immutable promise and absolute fulfilment; the Church utters the "Amen" of perfect faith and grateful adoration. Here, as in 1 Corinthians 14:16, we have a proof of the ancientness of the custom by which the congregation utters the "Amen" at the end of praise and prayer. But as the "yea" is in Christ, so it is only through him that we can receive the grace to utter aright the "Amen" to the glory of God. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/tpc/2- corinthians-1.html All the Promises of God Are Yes in Christ • Resource by John Piper
- 83. javascript:; /authors/john-piper J o hn P i p e r P h o t o /authors/john-piper https://twitter.com/JohnPiper https://www.desiringgod.org/bookshttps://www.desiringgod.org/books/desiring- godhttps://www.desiringgod.org/books/why-i-love-the-apostle-paul /interviews/how-do-i-grow-in-wisdom /labs/we-cannot-see-jesus-without-god /interviews/should-my-husband-pray-with-me-more /labs/only-god-can-reveal-god /interviews/should-we-call-female-leaders-pastors /interviews/who-is-yahweh/authors/john-piper • Scripture: 2 Corinthians 1:15–20 Topic: The Person of Christ Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a double pleasure; I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans like a worldly man, ready to say Yes and No at once? As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No; but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him, to the glory of God. Dissatisfied Contentment l " As long as we live in this age—with its sin and pain—our contentment in God should always be a dissatisfied contentment. Paul said in another place, "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own" (Philippians 3:12). Christ has made us his own! Our text today (in verses 21–22) says that God himself establishes us, anointed us (the Greek behind the RSV "commissioned"), sealed us, and gave us his Spirit as a guarantee. God means for us to have a deep contentment and security in Christ. But Paul does not say, "Because I am secure, I coast." He says, "Because he made me his own, I press on to make it my own." He longs for perfection. He longs for fullness. He is dissatisfied with his present state. His contentment is a dissatisfied contentment. He knows that in Christ he has every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3). But he also knows that his experience of these blessings is not as full as it could be. Paul knows that there is more to experience of the hope of our calling and the glory of our inheritance and the greatness of the
- 84. power at workwithin us (Ephesians 1:18–19). He knows that there is more strength of the Spirit for the inner man, there is more to know of the indwelling Christ, there is more breadth and length and height and depth of Christ's love to discover, and there is more of the fullness of God than he or any of us has experienced (Ephesians 3:16–19). Therefore every believer, whose contentment is really from the Spirit of God, is a dissatisfied believer. And therefore every true believer is a person who prays. Prayer is the heartfelt expression of holy dissatisfaction. The more satisfied you are with yourself the way you are and with the world the way it is, the less you will pray. But the more you desire all the fullness of God, the more you desire to know the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, the more you desire to be strengthened with the power of the Holy Spirit according to the riches of God's glory, the more you desire to know the hope of your calling and the riches of the glory of your inheritance, and the more you desire to be holy and pure and compassionate and patient and kind and tenderhearted and bold and fruitful, the more you will pray and the more passionately you will pray. Little prayer signifies little desire for God. Perfunctory prayer signifies a perfunctory relationship with God. Prayer at the Dawning of a New Decade l " We come to the end of a decade today. And I pray that we are looking back with a proper mingling of great gratitude and deep contrition. Contrition for our unbelief and sin, and gratitude for God's all-surpassing grace. Tomorrow we enter a new decade, the last decade of the last century in this millennium, and O how I pray that we will enter it with a proper mingling of deep contentment in the unspeakable, electing, predestining, calling, justifying, glorifying love of God for us in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:29–30)—a mingling of that deep contentment with a strong dissatisfaction. O that God might give us a great, holy dissatisfaction with the level of our experience of his fullness (Ephesians 3:19)! And with that great desire burning in our hearts, we begin the decade with a week of concerted prayer—the heartfelt expression of holy dissatisfaction. And I invite you—I plead with you—to consecrate yourself to God in some extraordinary way as this new decade begins. Tomorrow morning, as the new decade begins, give notice to your old nature and to the devil and to the world, by an act of holy consecration, that you belong to God and that you desire all the fullness of God more than you desire anything in the world. The Question Before Us l " The question that God asks us in our text this morning is this: Are you living in the fullest enjoyment of God's YES to you in Christ Jesus? Or to put it another way: Have you said yes to all of God's YES to you? Is there any of God's YES to you to which you are saying NO or MAYBE or NOT NOW? Let our consecration to God at the beginning of the 1990s be this: This is the decade of my YES to you, O God. I consecrate myself to forsake the NO and the MAYBE and the NOT NOW of my unbelief. And I say YES to everything in your YES to me. Let's look at the text together so that you can see this word from the Lord the same way I do.
- 85. Was Paul's HeartDivided Toward the Corinthians? l " According to verses 15–16 Paul had made a plan to visit Corinth twice to give them a double blessing. He was going to cross the Aegean Sea to Corinth on his way to Macedonia, and then come back by Corinth. This was his plan, and they heard about it. But then something happened that made him change his mind (see 1:23 ff.). Evidently the rumor starts to circulate that Paul's heart is divided. YES, he loves them and wants to see them and bless them. But NO, maybe not as much as he loves his own convenience or some other church. Is Paul's heart YES and NO toward the Corinthians? He answers passionately in verses 17–18: "Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans like a worldly man, ready to say Yes and No at once? As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No." In other words, our planning and our preaching are not fickle; they are not double minded; they are unified; they are YES to you. We live for your good. We are for you and not against you. Our life and ministry is a resounding YES, YES, YES! Yes to your joy! Yes to your holiness! Yes to your faith and hope and love and peace and power! And then in verses 19 and 20 Paul shows why his own life is YES to the Corinthians: namely, because God has spoken his final decisive YES to them in Christ. (19) For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No; but in him it is always YES. [Literally: "The (decisive) YES has happened in him"—God's heart is not divided in Christ. Christ means YES!] (20a) For all the promises of God find their YES in him. So Paul is saying: My heart is not divided toward you because God's heart is not divided toward you. If you belong to Christ by faith, then everything God could possibly give you for your good he has signed over to your account in Christ. You hear the same answer at every point: Is this promise in my account? Yes. Is this promise in my account? Yes. Is this blessing in my account? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All the promises of God are YES in Christ. God's Heart Toward Those in Christ l " In Galatians 3:29 Paul wrote, "If you are Christ's then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." (See Ephesians 3:6; Galatians 3:14, 22; Hebrews 9:15; Romans 15:8.) All the promises of God for the good of his people focus in Christ. He confirms them and secures them and, as it were, purchases them for all who belong to him—for all who believe (Galatians 3:22). Every sinner who comes to God in Christ, with all his needs, finds God coming to him in Christ, with all his promises. When a sinful person meets the holy God IN CHRIST, what he hears is YES. Do you love me? YES. Will you forgive me? YES. Will you accept me? YES. YES. Will you help me change? YES. Will you give me power to serve you? YES. Will you keep me? YES. Will you show me your glory? YES. All the promises of God—all the blessings of God in the heavenly places—are YES in Christ Jesus. Jesus is God's decisive YES to all who believe.
- 86. The Challenge andConnection to Prayer l " Now comes the great challenge and the connection between all this and prayer. Verse 20b: "That is why [or: therefore; so] we utter the Amen though him, to the glory of God [literally: to God for (his) glory]." Verse 20b explains why the Christian church says "Amen." It's a word taken over into Greek from Hebrew where it meant a very strong affirmation (Numbers 5:22; Nehemiah 5:13; 8:6)—a formal, solemn, earnest "I agree," or "I affirm what you just said," or "This is true." Most simply AMEN means a very earnest YES in the context of addressing God. Now notice the connection between the two halves of verse 20. The first half says, "For all the promises of God find their YES in him." The second half says, "That is why we utter the Amen through him, to God for his glory." When you realize that AMEN and YES mean the same thing, here's what the verse means: In Jesus Christ God says his YES, his AMEN, to us through his promises; and in Christ we say our YES, our AMEN, back to God, through prayer. Four Observations About Prayer l " Notice four things about prayer in verse 20. 1. Prayer Is Through Jesus Verse 20b: "That is why we utter the AMEN through him . . . " God's YES comes to us in Christ according to verse 20a ("All the promises of God find their YES in him.") So if God's YES comes to us in Christ, then prayer must go to God through Christ, because nobody wants to hear a NO. Everybody wants to hear a yes when they pray, and that is what we hear in Christ, and nowhere else. This is what we mean when we say, "In Jesus' name," at the end of our prayers. 2. Prayer Is for God's Glory Verse 20b: "That is why we utter the Amen though him, to God for [his] glory." Amen is the great affirmation that God is the Giver and we are the needy. Amen affirms God's grace and goodness and power and wisdom to respond in the very best way for his glory and for our good. All prayer should have the glory of God as its chief aim. Amen is our YES to the glory of God. 3. Prayer Is Laying Hold onto Promises Prayer is drawing on the account where God has deposited all his promises. Prayer is not hoping in the dark that there might be a God of good intentions out there. Prayer goes to the bank and draws on promises. Don't miss the connection between the two halves of the verse: "All the promises of God find their YES in him. THAT [because of the promises!] is why we utter the Amen through him, to God for his glory." Which leads to . . . 4. AMEN Is a Full and Precious Word in Times of Prayer It doesn't mean primarily, "YES, I have said all this prayer." It means primarily, "YES, God has made all these promises." AMEN means, YES, Lord, you can do it. It means, YES, Lord, you are powerful. YES, Lord, you are wise. YES, Lord, you are merciful. AMEN is like an exclamation
- 87. point of faithin a prayer for help. Or an exclamation point of strong affirmation after a statement of God's greatness. As you come to the end of every prayer there are two AMEN's, two YES's. When you say, "In Jesus' name," that is God's AMEN. All his promises are YES and AMEN in Jesus: Jesus Christ is God's YES and AMEN at the end of your prayer. Then when you say, "AMEN," this is your YES and AMEN back to God for his. AMEN is our YES to God for his YES to us in Jesus Christ. Have You Said Yes to All of God's Yes to You? l " Which brings us back to the question we raised at the beginning: Are you living in the fullest enjoyment of God's YES to you in Christ Jesus? Have you said YES to all of God's YES to you? Is there any of God's YES to you to which you are saying NO or MAYBE or NOT NOW? I plead with you to let your consecration to God at the beginning of the 1990s be this: "O Lord, I promise that by your grace this will be the decade of my YES to you. I consecrate myself to forsake the NO and the MAYBE and the NOT NOW of my unbelief. And I say YES to everything in your YES to me. I pledge myself to a holy dissatisfaction until I have known the fullness of your YES in Christ Jesus." We begin the decade with a week of prayer. Let me mention the times for you to consider. 1. Starting tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM we will pray each morning Monday through Friday at 7:00 AM in the chapel for 30 minutes. You can consecrate every day of the first week of the decade with united prayer. 2. On Wednesday evening at 7:00 we will meet for an hour and a half in a concert of prayer focusing on the spiritual and social needs of our city and the cities of the world. Here in this room. You can consecrate yourself in this way to a larger vision than just your own personal needs. 3. On Friday at 10:00 PM we begin a powerful night of going hard after God in prayer for eight hours. I believe much of the blessing we have known over the past ten years together is owing to God's calling us to nights of prayer and meeting us there in significant ways. 4. The Fireside Room will be set up for Personal Prayer Retreats. You can get into the church and use the room Tuesday through Saturday from 7 AM to 9 PM. 5. Finally, we have ordered 150 copies of Ablaze for God. I hope we sell them all (they are $7.00). We chose this because it does just that: it makes the heart blaze with a passion for prayer. Consecrate your mind to God with a time of reading about prayer and power this week and in the weeks to come. Would you pray for the pastoral and ministerial staff as we take a three-day retreat for prayer and fasting and planning Tuesday through Thursday? We will come in for the Wednesday evening Concert of Prayer, but besides that, we will be in prayer and study and planning all that time. We are seeking from the Lord focus and goals for the 1990s. It is utterly crucial that you cover us with your prayer all day. We really want to meet God, and seek his heart for our church and our mission in this city and the world for the next ten years.
- 88. I close withthe question once more: Are you living in the fullest enjoyment of God's YES to you in Christ Jesus? Have you said YES and AMEN to all the promises of God? Would you join us in the first week of the last decade of the last century of the millennium for an extraordinary time of consecration as we say YES to all God's promises in prayer? JOSEPHPARKER The Everlasting Yea 2 Corinthians 1:19 This is the very finest conception of the personality and the purpose, the kingship and the rule of the Son of God. We may get at the meaning of these words by paraphrase rather than by translation. Any translation is rugged. In him was Amen. That "Amen" was his own word. No man used it so frequently. It was only his own word because it was his own self. That is one of his names:—"These things saith the Amen." When did Jesus say Amen? I answer by putting another inquiry—When did he ever say anything else? He said it thirty-one times in the Gospel according to Matthew; in the Gospel according to Mark we have fourteen instances of it; in the Gospel according to Luke he says Amen seven times, and in the Gospel according to John we find this same Amen, single and double, five-and-twenty times. Now we see what the text is:—In him was Song of Solomon -be-it—Yes—Amen. That is the Christ of God. Not a double-minded Prayer of Manasseh , not here and there, not going east and west, but the same yesterday, to-day, for ever; not the empty mocking No, but the everlasting satisfying Yes. Christ has well been called the incarnate Amen of God. In him all the promises are Yea and Amen; in him God says, Now take what you will: you call for my promises, there they are; you ask for my redemption, here it is; you have been praying to me for centuries for some great positive answer, behold it: this Son of Mary, Son of Prayer of Manasseh , is the Amen of God. How did he use the Amen so frequently? for we do not remember to have heard it, unless it be at the close of what is known as the Lord"s Prayer; then the word Amen does occur. But the word Amen is not a word to be used in prayer only, unless we make prayer the greatest exercise of the soul, which it ought to be made, the finest and completest expression of life, thought, purpose, and design. Jesus Christ began his speeches with Amen:—"Amen, amen, I say unto you." In our old quaint English we have it, "Verily, verily:" what Christ said was in our English pronunciation, Amen, amen,— Song of Solomon -be-it, Yes,—the everlasting affirmation. That is our Saviour. We know what it is to have to deal with some people who never can be brought to Yes. They speculate, they doubt, they wonder, they conjecture, they make hypotheses, they invent theories; you can bind them down to nothing. It is so with all the other teachers of the world; they have a genius in the matter of conjecture; they guess well, they reason strongly, but they are always afraid of their own reason; throughout their strongest asseverations there runs a tone hesitant, double, equivocal,—it may be so or thus, and some other man may be right when he suggests the contradiction of this theory. In Christ on the contrary is "Yea"—that which is decisive, definite, positive, complete, unchangeable. "Other men have said unto you... but I say unto you; other men have brought you Proverbs , I bring you philosophies; other men have been liberal in conjectures, I am the revelation of God." That is his tone; that is the standard by which he wishes to be judged.
- 89. We cannot liveon negations. Yet we are deluded into the belief that negation is at least one aspect of cleverness. Negations have never done the best work in the world. They have been useful, but in a limited and measurable degree. We have known negations in arithmetic. Arithmetic is not the art of doubting. Arithmetic has its points, lines, conclusions, but if you do not accept them you cannot be an arithmetician, you cannot calculate, you cannot reckon upon this planet. Euclid has his axioms. He would not talk to us if we did not accept them all at once. He says, You have no business in this book if you doubt the axioms; they must be accepted. They are no negations, they are affirmations; they are the everlasting Yes in geometry. Law aims to be definite, positive, conclusive. It has to struggle its way up very far before it reaches the point of settlement; yet law is always aiming at finality. It begins a long way down, before the well-meaning magistrate, who is glad to hand it on to the next court, which in its turn is very thankful to get rid of it so that it may be discussed in the Court of Appeal, which mumbles over it, and clouds about it, and stupefies itself over it, and says silently, Thank God, it must go to the House of Lords. But when it gets there it is written in the books, and there it is. That was the object from the beginning, to get at definiteness, to get at Yes. Christ begins where all other men begin, and whilst they end hesitantly he ends positively, as he began positively:—Verily, verily, Amen, amen, Yes, yes, I say unto you. Why this tone of decision and clearness? Why this pomp of definiteness? Because the Lord Christ is not a speculator but a Saviour. When the life-boat goes out it does not go out to reason with the drowning men but to lay hold of them. When the sea is sunny, when the air is a blessing, then boats may approach one another, and talk to one another more or less merrily and kindly, and as it were upon equal terms; but when the wind is alive, when the sea and sky seem to have no dividing line, and death has opened its jaws to swallow up, as if in a bottomless pit, all its prey, then the life-boat says, We have not come out here to reason and to conjecture and to bandy opinions with you, but to seize you and save you. That is what Christ has come for,—The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost: God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Song of Solomon , that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life: I am not come to destroy men"s lives, but to save them. You never can save a man by saying no to him; the only thing that can save the soul is the everlasting Yes, the Verily of everlasting love. There were two classes of men in the Middle Ages, both about as busy as they could be. The one class was called the Crusaders. They were up early in the morning, they were up late at night; they handled their weapons well, they had keen ears for the approach of the enemy; they were fighters, they were inflamed with an infatuated enthusiasm. The other men were not fighters, they were cathedral-builders. Where are the Crusaders? I do not know. Where are the other men? At Canterbury, at Westminster, at York; all through the area of Europe. But the Crusaders were stalwart men and made a noise whenever they went from home; but they were "No" men, they were men who put down, they were aggressive, they were soldiers, in a sense they were madmen: destruction was their accompanying evil angel. The other men were builders, and the builders last longer than the fighters. Blessed be God, this is true. Why not build more? Why not do the positive, constructive, edifying work? All this red-coated demonstration, all this thirst for glory and for blood, Isaiah , for the moment, very dazzling and very wonderful, and constitutes in posse a magnificent newspaper property; but building—slow, stately, tranquil building—it abides when the mere mechanical assistants and contractors have passed away. It is even so with this Christ of God. He is a cathedral-builder; he has his fighting times; none can fight like Christ: but he only fights that he may have room to build in; he is building the cathedral of manhood, he is putting up the temple of regenerated human nature; he
- 90. is the everlastingYes: and as we work for him and work with him a great voice fills the air like music poured out from some larger world, Verily, verily, I say unto you. Christ is a builder. The Church is a building. There are very clever men who are doing nothing. They are reading very able papers to most reverential audiences of wood—audiences which never stop nor interrupt them or find fault with them, and which care nothing about them. They can prove to demonstration that if x be multiplied by x, and the whole be squared up by y and w, no power in the universe can tell what the end will be: and the wood stands there, and so the matter ends. This is no Gospel; it is a kind of intellectual quarrel with some other intellectual thing, both invisible, both anonymous, both fighting in the dark, both stone-blind: and thus it comes to nought multiplied by nought, equal to nought. Jesus Christ comes in with definite offers, special promises, with an eternal affirmation,—Yes, yes, is the music-speech of Christ. See if this be not so. Hear him; never man spake like this Man. Why art thou here, thou Son of God, an angel far from home? Listen:—"I am come that they might have life." That is the everlasting Yea, the eternal Positive. Why art thou here, thou Son of God? this world is not for thee; we have spoiled it—hence1Listen:—"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." It is the eternal constructive, the donation positive. Other men will give me a new argument, will turn the subject round and ask me to view it in various phases; they will try to alleviate my disquietude by changing its points and its balances, but never reducing its solid quantity. This Prayer of Manasseh , come whence he may, says he will give me what I want— "rest." Let us go and see what he is about What is he giving? Bread. But if there be no more bread? That is impossible; when he touches it he multiplies it; when he gives it away he has more of it. But if the bread in a literal sense should fail, he will give us his flesh; and as for wine, he will tap the fountain of his heart that we die not for want of sustenance. This is his scheme; this is his way of doing things; this is the everlasting Yea, the Verily, Verily of God. But death will overcome us, death will take us away; what will Jesus do then? He has provided a Yes with which to oppose the negative of death. What is the Yes of Christ in relation to the No of death? It is—hear it—a long word, long as the duration of God,—it is resurrection! He hunts negation out of its last den, robs it of its last prey, and sits himself down at the right hand of God, the Amen the everlasting Yes. Why do we not seek for the positive, the constructive, and the eternal? You hear a discourse, and what is the suggestion of the enemy to your soul? It is to disagree with it. Satan lives in negation; he would have no ministry but for denial; he began by contradicting, and his whole genius is limited to that meanest of ministries. Instead of retiring from the service, saying, "I had bread to-day, my soul feasted bountifully at the table of the Lord," the enemy says, Now, how far did you agree with it? and you say, I did not agree with that view There you are lost. It is not what you do not agree with, but what you accept, that is going to save you. Ye are saved by faith. Here then we stand. This is how Christ must be preached. He must be preached in his own spirit. Christ is not yea and nay; Christ is not hesitant, variable, uncertain, double-minded. Yet Christ is being preached negatively to-day. We want the Gospel offered, not the Gospel defended. We want the Gospel preached, and not preached about. The word "about" is the pit that swallows up many a ministry. All that Jesus asks of us is to tell positive truth, to offer positive blessing, to call men to the positive Christ, which means the positive pardon, the positive peace, and the positive heaven. So the Apostle preached Christ, the positive Christ, the living Christ, the present Christ, the Christ of the Cross, the Christ who shed his blood to save the world. Nothing is easier than to suggest doubts and difficulties, and to ask questions. There are some lines of inquiry along which it is right to ask questions because only by asking them can we
- 91. make progress; thereare other questions of an elementary kind which can be asked with a sincere, simple heart; the Lord invites us to put such inquiries to him, and he will answer us; but there are other questions which are born of conceit and intellectual pedantry and mere vanity of soul, and these vex and torment the mind, and heaven will not condescend to answer them. Heaven has nothing to say to pride, heaven only speaks to humbleness of soul. From contrition of heart heaven will withhold no blessing, no good thing will the Lord withhold from them that walk uprightly. This holds good in the communication of spiritual truth and spiritual blessing, as well as in the conferring of physical comfort and physical protection. Think of Christ as a great Yes. When you lay your case of distress before your friend what you want from him is not a critical argument upon your imprudence in having brought yourself into a state of destitution, you want his genial, generous Yes. There are many men wonderfully able in telling other people that they ought not to have come into trouble. If rebukes could feed the world such men would make gluttons of the universe. They point out where the man got wrong; they tell him with a tongue sharper than a two-edged sword that he ought not to have got wrong at that point; they lacerate him, scalp him, and vivisect him, and turn him out into the cold. They represent the everlasting No. One little loaf of bread would have been better than all the lecturing; it would have prepared the way for the right sort of exhortation. This is Christ"s representation of himself to the world, and this is his representation of God. He says that, if we will go back with a prayer of confession upon our lips, the Lord will not allow us to get through it; he will allow us to begin it, but before we have ended it he will smother us in his arms. Blessed be God for the eternal verity! A. MACLAREN GOD'S YEA; MAN'S AMEN ‘For how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea: wherefore also through Him is the Amen.’—2 Corinthians i. 20 (R. V.). This is one of the many passages the force and beauty of which are, for the first time, brought within the reach of an English reader by the alterations in the Revised Version. These are partly dependent upon the reading of the text and partly upon the translation. As the words stand in the Authorised Version, ‘yea’ and ‘amen’ seem to be very nearly synonymous expressions, and to point substantially to the same thing—viz. that Jesus Christ is, as it were, the confirmation and seal of God's promises. But in the Revised Version the alterations, especially in the pronouns, indicate more distinctly that the Apostle means two different things by the ‘yea’ and the ‘amen’. The one is God's voice, the other is man's. The one has to do with the certainty of the divine revelation, the other has to do with the certitude of our faith in the revelation. When God speaks in Christ, He confirms everything that He has said before, and when we listen to God speaking in Christ, our lips are, through Christ, opened to utter our assenting ‘Amen’ to His great promises. So, then, we have the double form of our Lord's work, covering the whole ground of His relations to man, set forth in these two clauses, in the one of which God's confirmation of His past revelations by Jesus Christ is treated of, and in the other of which the full and confident
- 92. assent which menmay give to that revelation is set before us. I deal, then, with these two points—God's certainties in Christ, and man's certitudes through Christ. Now these two things do not always go together. We may be very certain, as far as our persuasion is concerned, of a very doubtful fact, or we may be very doubtful, as far as our persuasion is concerned, of a very certain fact. We speak about truths or facts as being certain, and we ought to mean by that, not how we think about them, but what they are in the evidence on which they rest. A certain truth is a truth which has its evidence irrefragable; and the only fitting attitude for men, in the presence of a certain truth, is to have a certitude of the truth. And these two things are, our Apostle tells us, both given to us in and through Jesus Christ. Let me deal, then, with these two sides. I. First, God's certainties in Christ. Of course the original reference of the text is to the whole series of great promises given in the Old Testament. These, says Paul, are sealed and confirmed to men by the revelation and work of Jesus Christ, but it is obvious that the principle which is good in reference to them is good on a wider field. I venture to take that extension, and to ask you to think briefly about some of the things that are made for us indubitably certain in Jesus Christ. And, first of all, there is the certainty about God's heart. Everywhere else we have only peradventures, hopes, fears, guesses more or less doubtful, and roundabout inferences as to His disposition and attitude towards us. As one of the old divines says somewhere, ‘All other ways of knowing God are like the bended bow, Christ is the straight string.’ The only means by which, indubitably, as a matter of demonstration, men can be sure that God in the heavens has a heart of love towards them is by Jesus Christ. For consider what will make us sure of that. Nothing but facts; words are of little use, arguments are of little use. A revelation, however precious, which simply says to us, ‘God is Love’ is not sufficient for our need. We want to see love in operation if we are to be sure of it, and the only demonstration of the love of God is to witness the love of God in actual working. And you get it—where? On the Cross of Jesus Christ. I do not believe that anything else irrefragably establishes the fact for the yearning hearts of us poor men who want love, and yet cannot grope our way in amidst the mysteries and the clouds in providence and nature, except this—‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’ The question may arise in some minds, Is there any need for proving God's love? The question never arose except within the limits of Christianity. It is only men who have lived all their lives in an atmosphere saturated by Christian sentiment and conviction that ever come to the point of saying, ‘We do not want historical revelation to prove to us the fact of a loving God.’ They would never have fancied that they did not need the revelation unless, unconsciously to themselves, and indirectly, all their thoughts had been coloured and illuminated by the revelation that they profess they reject. God as Love is ‘our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt,’ and the only way to make absolutely certain of the fact that His heart is full of mercy to us is to look upon Him as He stands revealed to us, not merely in the words of Christ, for, precious as they are, these are the smallest part of His revelation, but in the life and in the death which open for us the heart of God. Remember what He said Himself, not ‘He who hath listened to Me, doth understand the Father,’ but ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’ ‘In Him is yea,’ and the hopes and shadowy fore-revelations of the loving heart of God are confirmed by the fact of His life and death. God establishes, not ‘commends’ as our translation has it, ‘His love towards us in that whilst we were yet sinners Christ died for us.’
- 93. Further, in Himwe have the certainty of pardon. Every deep heart-experience amongst men has felt the necessity of having a clear certainty and knowledge about forgiveness. Men do not feel it always. A man can skate over the surface of the great deeps that lie beneath the most frivolous life, and may suppose, in his superficial way of looking at things, that there is no need for any definite teaching about sin and the mode of dealing with it. But once bring that man face to face, in a quiet hour, with the facts of his life and of a divine law, and all that superficial ignoring of evil in himself and of the dread of punishment and consequences, passes away. I am sure of this, that no religion will ever go far and last long and work mightily, and lay a sovereign hand upon human life, which has not a most plain and decisive message to preach in reference to pardon. And I am sure of this, that one reason for the comparative feebleness of much so-called Christian teaching in this generation is just that the deepest needs of a man's conscience are not met by it. In a religion on which the whole spirit of a man may rest itself, there must be a very plain message about what is to be done with sin. The only message which answers to the needs of an awakened conscience and an alarmed heart is the old-fashioned message that Jesus Christ the Righteous has died for us sinful men. All other religions have felt after a clear doctrine of forgiveness, and all have failed to find it. Here is the divine ‘Yea!’ And on it alone we can suspend the whole weight of our soul's salvation. The rope that is to haul us out of the horrible pit and the miry clay had much need to be tested before we commit ourselves to it. There are plenty of easygoing superficial theories about forgiveness predominant in the world to-day. Except the one that says, ‘In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sin,’ they are all like the rope let down into the dark mine to lift the captives beneath, half of the strands of which have been cut on the sharp edge above, and when the weight hangs on to it, it will snap. There is nothing on which a man who has once learned the tragical meaning and awful reality and depth of the fact of his transgression can suspend his forgiveness, except this, that ‘Christ has died, the just for the unjust, to bring us unto God.’ ‘In Him the promise is yea.’ And, again, we have in Christ divine certainties in regard to life. We have in Him the absolutely perfect pattern to which we are to conform our whole doings. And so, notwithstanding that there may, and will still be many uncertainties and much perplexity, we have the great broad lines of morals and of duty traced with a firm hand, and all that we need to know of obligation and of perfectness lies in this—Be like Jesus Christ! So the solemn commandments of the ethical side of Divine Revelation, as well as the promises of it, get their ‘yea’ in Jesus Christ, and He stands the Law of our lives. We have certainties for life, in the matter of protection, guidance, supply of all necessity, and the like, treasured and garnered in Jesus Christ. For He not only confirms, but fulfils, the promises which God has made. If we have that dear Lord for our very own, and He belongs to us as He does belong to them who love Him and trust Him, then in Him we have in actual possession these promises, how many soever they be, which are given by God's other words. Christ is Protean, and becomes everything to each man that each man requires. He is, as it were, ‘a box where sweets compacted lie.’ ‘In Him are hid all the treasures,’ not only of wisdom and knowledge, but of divine gifts, and we have but to go to Him in order to have that which at each moment as it emerges, we most require. As in some of those sunny islands of the Southern Pacific, one tree supplies the people with all that they need for their simple wants, fruit for their food, leaves for their houses, staves, thread, needles, clothing, drink, everything—so Jesus Christ, this Tree of Life, is Himself the sum of all the promises, and, having Him, we have everything that we need.
- 94. And, lastly, inChrist we have the divine certainties as to the Future over which, apart from Him, lie cloud and darkness. As I said about the revelation of the heart of God, so I say about the revelation of a future life—a verbal revelation is not enough. We have enough of arguments; what we want is facts. We have enough of man's peradventures about a future life, enough of evidence more or less valid to show that it is ‘probable,’ or ‘not inconceivable,’ or ‘more likely than not,’ and so on and so on. What we want is that somebody shall cross the gulf and come back again, and so we get in the Resurrection of Christ the one fact on which men may safely rest their convictions of immortality, and I do not think that there is a second anywhere. On it alone, as I believe, hinges the whole answer to the question—‘If a man die, shall he live again?’ This generation is brought, in my reading of it, right up to this alternative—Christ's Resurrection,—or we die like the brutes that perish. ‘All the promises of God in Him are yea.’ II. And now a word as to the second portion of my text—viz. man's certitudes, which answer to God's certainties. The latter are in Christ, the former are through Christ. Now it is clear that the only fitting attitude for professing Christians in reference to these certainties of God is the attitude of unhesitating affirmation and joyful assent. Certitude is the fitting response to certainty. There should be some kind of correspondence between the firmness with which we grasp, the tenacity with which we hold, the assurance with which we believe, these great truths, and the rock-like firmness and immovableness of the evidence upon which they rest. It is a poor compliment to God to come to His most veracious affirmations, sealed with the broad seal of His Son's life and death, and to answer with a hesitating ‘Amen,’ that falters and almost sticks in our throat. Build rock upon rock. Be sure of the certain things. Grasp with a firm hand the firm stay. Immovably cling to the immovable foundation; and though you be but like the limpet on the rock hold fast by the Rock, as the limpet does; for it is an insult to the certainty of the revelation, when there is hesitation in the believer. I need not dwell for more than a moment upon the lamentable contrast which is presented between this certitude, which is our only fitting attitude, and the hesitating assent and half belief in which so many professing Christians pass their lives. The reasons for that are partly moral, partly intellectual. This is not a day which is favourable to the unhesitating avowal of convictions in reference to an unseen world, and many of us are afraid of being called narrow, or dogmatisers, and think it looks like breadth, and liberality, and culture, and I know not what, to say ‘Well! perhaps it is, but I am not quite sure; I think it is, but I will not commit myself.’ All the promises of God, which in Him are yea, ought through Him to get from us an ‘Amen.’ There is a great deal that will always be uncertain. The firmer our convictions, the fewer will be the things that they grasp; but, if they be few, they will be large, and enough for us. These truths certified in Christ concerning the heart of God, the message of pardon, the law for life, the gifts of guidance, defence, and sanctifying, the sure and certain hope of immortality—these things we ought to be sure about, whatever borderland of uncertainty may lie beyond them. The Christian verb is ‘we know,’ not ‘we hope, we calculate, we infer, we think,’ but ‘we know.’ And it becomes us to apprehend for ourselves the full blessedness and power of the certitude which Christ has given to us by the certainties which he has brought us. I need not speak about the blessedness of such a calm assurance, about the need of it for power, for peace, for effort, for fixedness in the midst of a world and age of change. But I must, before I close, point you to the only path by which that certitude is attainable. ‘Through Him is the
- 95. amen.’ He isthe Door. The truths which He confirms are so inextricably intertwined with Himself that you cannot get them and put away Him. Christ's relation to Christ's Gospel is not the relation of other teachers to their words. You may accept the words of a Plato, whatever you think of the Plato who spoke the words. But you cannot separate Christ and His teaching in that fashion, and you must have Him if you are to get it. So, faith in Him, the intellectual acceptance of Him, as the authoritative and infallible Revealer, the bowing down of heart and will to Him as our Commander and our Lord, the absolute trust in Him as the foundation of all our hope and the source of all our blessedness—that is the way to certitude, and there is no other road that we can take. If thus we keep near Him, our faith will bring us the present experience and fulfilment of the promises, and we shall be sure of them, because we have them already. And whilst men are asking, ‘Do we know anything about God? Is there a God at all? Is there such a thing as forgiveness? Can anybody find anywhere absolute rules for his life? Is there anything beyond the grave but mist and darkness?’ we can say, ‘One thing I know, Jesus Christ is my Saviour, and in Him I know God, and pardon, and duty, and sanctifying, and safety, and immortality; and whatever is dark, this, at least, is sun-clear.’ Get high enough up and you will be above the fog; and while the men down in it are squabbling as to whether there is anything outside the mist, you, from your sunny station, will see the far-off coasts, and haply catch some whiff of perfume from their shore, and see some glinting of a glory upon the shining turrets of ‘the city that hath foundations.’ We have a present possession of all the promises of God; and whoever doubts their certitude, the man who knows himself a son of God by faith, and has experience of forgiveness and guidance and answered prayer and hopes whose ‘sweetness yieldeth proof that they were born for immortality,’ knows the things which others question and doubt. So live near Jesus Christ, and, holding fast by His hand, you may lift up your joyful ‘Amen’ to every one of God's ‘Yeas.’ For in Him we know the Father, in Him we know that we have the forgiveness of sins, in Him we know that God is near to bless and succour and guide, and in Him ‘we know that, though our earthly house were dissolved, we have a building of God.’ Wherefore we are always confident; and when the Voice from Heaven says ‘Yea!’ our choral shout may go up ‘Amen! Thou art the faithful and true witness.’ Great Texts of the Bible The Yea and the Amen For how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the yea: wherefore also through him is the Amen, unto the glory of God through us.—2 Corinthians 1:20. 1. These words occur in a homely and curious connexion. St. Paul had not kept his appointment with the Corinthian Church, and he fears that the influence of a hostile party may cause his failure to be misunderstood. Did he use lightness? Was his pledge Yea, Yea, and Nay, Nay; Yes to-day, and No to-morrow? Now, what would seem most natural for us to say, if exposed to such a charge? Perhaps we should exclaim, “I am not such a man”; or, “They have mistaken the person they have to deal with”; or again, “I can afford to despise the insinuation.” But St. Paul
- 96. did not thinkfirst about himself. He had passed out of the sphere where any subject, even the slightest, appealed first and most naturally to his personal instincts and his self-respect. When he is reproached with changing lightly the plan of a tour (which plan he had actually changed), his thoughts revert to Christ and His Gospel, which such conduct would dishonour. What notion of the Master have these people, who charge him, the herald, with such unworthy levity? There was not Yea and Nay with Paul, because in Christ was one steadfast Yea. Now, this argument is illogical unless we supply a suppressed premiss which St. Paul did not pause to state, since he had much to say in few words. For just as God’s fidelity is no guarantee of Paul’s veracity, unless Paul was a partaker of the Divine nature, so the steadfast sincerity of Christ is no guarantee of his sincerity, unless he and Christ are one—one in being, one in thought, will, aim. But this oneness with Christ was a fundamental conception of the Christian life with St. Paul. It lay at the basis of his theology. He could neither preach a sermon nor write a letter without affirming or assuming it. So completely was he one with Christ that he affirms that he was crucified with Christ; that he died when Christ died, and rose again from the dead. All he did he did by Christ, as well as for Him. All he suffered was but a filling up of the remnant of Christ’s affliction. His motto, his characteristic word, might well be: “Henceforth I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” That being so, it was natural that he should assume this doctrine of the indwelling Christ here; and assume also that his readers would supply this premiss of his argument, which he did not think it necessary, or which it did not occur to him, to state. And, of course, the moment it was assumed, the Apostle’s argument became sound, and even irresistible. For then it ran: The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is true; Christ is in me; the spring of all virtue, as well as the hope of glory: and therefore I am, I must be, true. As He, was not Yea and Nay, my word to you is not, and cannot be, Yea and Nay. 2. Now look at the text. This is one of the many passages the force and beauty of which are, for the first time, brought within the reach of an English reader by the alterations in the Revised Version. These are dependent partly upon the reading of the Greek and partly upon the translation. As the words stand in the Authorized Version, “yea” and “amen” seem to be very nearly synonymous expressions, and to point substantially to the same thing, namely, that Jesus Christ is as it were the confirmation and seal of God’s promises. But in the Revised Version the alterations, especially in the pronouns, indicate more distinctly that the Apostle means two different things by the “yea” and the “amen.” The one is God’s voice, the other is man’s. The one has to do with the certainty of the Divine revelation, the other has to do with the certitude of our faith in the revelation. When God speaks in Christ, He confirms everything that He has said before, and when we listen to God speaking in Christ, our lips are, through Christ, opened to shout our assenting “Amen” to His great promises. This is a truth so far-reaching that all the promises of God have the seal of their stability in Christ. As often as any pledge is realized (and that is whenever one is trusted), the conscience of the Church confesses that her enjoyment of it has been attained in Him. Through Him, therefore, she returns her glad attestation. How many soever are the promises of God, in Him is the Yea of Divine fulfilment; wherefore through Him is also the Amen of human acknowledgment and praise, “to the glory of God through us.” 3. Taken thus, the text not only gives us a new conception of the mission of Christ, it gives us
- 97. also a newconception of the vocation of the Church, of our vocation as Christian men. Christ is the Yea of God: we, through the power of the indwelling Christ, are the Amen. It is His mission to translate all the thoughts of God into actual and vital forms; it is our vocation, as we study that translation, as we see those thoughts taking shape, as they become visible and recognizable to us, to add our Amen to them, i.e. to accept, welcome, and conform to them. The power to add this Amen, to consent to and obey the will of God, we derive from Christ, who lives, and dwells in us. And this power is given to us with a view “to the glory of God through us.” In fine, the vision which lies behind St. Paul’s words, and which he labours to express, seems to be nothing less than this: He conceives of the infinite God as dwelling in the inaccessible light, and thinking out the thoughts of His eternal righteousness and love; He conceives of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as translating these thoughts into creative, providential, and redeeming acts; and he conceives of the vast congregation of those who love God and believe on His Son as standing round and contemplating the Divine thoughts which take visible form at the behest of the Son, and chanting their loud Amen to all that He does, to all that He reveals of the Father’s will. I Christ’s Yea “In him is the yea.” There are two ways in which we may think of Christ as Yea. First He is Himself certain, and next the promises are certain in Him. 1. Christ Himself is certain.—Nothing is more noteworthy, when our attention is drawn to it, than the confidence of the assertions of Christ, so vast and far-reaching in their scope, so unqualified by any “perhaps,” by any hint of uncertainty or conjecture. (1) This is so with regard to His own earthly life. Strange indeed is the contrast between the words of His Apostle, “I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there,” and the explicit and detailed warnings given by Jesus of the manner, the circumstances, and the date of His death. “Not on the feast-day,” said the priests; but the knowledge of their Victim outran their most subtle calculations. “After two days the passover cometh, and the Son of man is delivered up to be crucified.” (2) Again, we all feel the pressure and solemnity of the problems of human existence. Revelation is perfect as a practical guide, but a solver of theoretical problems it is not. What am I? Whither am I going? He may be a good Christian, but assuredly he is a dull thinker, who supposes that every cloud is lifted by religion from the twin problems of our origin and our destiny. Dimly these questions loom up, like gigantic mountain slopes visible through rolling vapours, before us and behind. Through changing mists we see them, half illumined in the radiance of our Christian trust, but their head and their base alike are swathed in impenetrable mystery. In this baffled peering wonder Jesus had no share. He alone of human beings could say, without reserve, “I know whence I come, and whither I go.” And yet the mystery of His being was the most profound of all.
- 98. (3) The sametone of unwavering certitude is audible in His teaching about duty and God. Others have taught with a wonderful confidence, but it has always been avowedly a derived and imparted message. Gabriel spoke to Muhammad. The spot is shown where Gautama, after agonies of search, became Buddha, which means, “the enlightened one.” Even the prophets of the true faith were men “to whom the word of the Lord came,” a position which Christ contrasted with His own. But if men had known Him they should have known the Father. “The Father sheweth him all things that himself doeth.” “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” (4) In quite the same confident tones Jesus spoke of the life to come; “In my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you”; “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” Review the whole circle of spiritual truth, and see whether there is any part of it where Jesus trod with hesitating step. Find one conjecture, one mere inference, one example of truth arrived at otherwise than as a fact within His own consciousness. He used Scripture to repel Satan, to refute gainsayers, to convince the hesitating; and, as in His last words upon the cross, to express the deepest emotions of His own heart. But His natural and characteristic method, with all teachable souls, is as He expressed it to Nicodemus: “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.” This certainty of Christ’s is part of the completeness of His character and life. And hence it becomes part of that assurance we have when we put our trust in Him. The character and doctrine of Jesus are the sun that holds all the minor orbs of revelation to their places, and pours a sovereign self-evidencing light into all religious knowledge. It is no ingenious fetches of argument that we want; no external testimony, gathered here and there from the records of past ages, suffices to end our doubts; but it is the new sense opened in us by Jesus Himself—a sense deeper than words and more immediate than inference—of the miraculous grandeur of His life; a glorious agreement felt between His works and His person, such that His miracles themselves are proved to us in our feeling, believed in by that inward testimony. On this inward testimony we are willing to stake everything, even the life that now is, and that which is to come. If the miracles, if revelation itself, cannot stand upon the superhuman character of Jesus, then let it fall. If that character does not contain all truth and centralize all truth in itself, then let there be no truth.1 [Note: Horace Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural.] Let me forget all else that I have known— All else that I have heard; Let me remember Thee, and Thee alone, O Jesus—living Word! It is enough to know that I am Thine—
- 99. That Thou dostundertake To hold and keep this helpless life of mine— Accepted for Thy sake. O, Thou alone canst hope or help afford; There is no way beside. I look to Thee, my glorious risen Lord, And I am satisfied.1 [Note: Edith H. Divall, A Believer’s Rest, 30.] 2. The promises of God are certain in Christ.—This is the special assertion of St. Paul in the text. And these promises, we may say at once, have their certainty of fulfilment in Christ because He has fulfilled the conditions on which they are suspended. “The wages of sin is death.” “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” So say the Scriptures; so says the conscience of man in a hundred lands. The promises of pardon for sin are many and rich; but they are all based on the fact that Christ voluntarily took our place under the Law and paid the penalty our disobedience incurred. Behind the promises are the cross and the real sacrifice it bore. That that sacrifice of Himself was accepted of God in our behalf is put beyond denial by His resurrection from the dead. Anyone can write a promise of pardon; many wise men have taught moral truth; and some good men have died in pity and in love for their fellow-men. There were three crosses on Calvary that day. Why do we lean with all religious hope on the central cross? Because Christ in His teaching, in His works of mercy, in giving Himself to die for us, based the acceptance by God of what He did in our behalf on His resurrection on the third day. Other men were wise; loved their fellow-men with a passion of love and died for them; but of such only Christ was raised from the dead at the time foretold. The opening of the grave and the raising of the dead is the sole prerogative of God. That resurrection is God’s endorsement and acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice as atonement for man’s sin. The promises of the needed grace for the passing day are based on the fact that after His resurrection Christ ascended into heaven and is there making continual intercession for us. These promises put us in touch with a living Saviour. The promises of future glory on which we depend are based on the fact that Christ has entered into that glory and is there now preparing a place for us, to return again to take us to Himself, that where He is we may be also. There, then, is the security behind these promises—the person and the work of Christ, His life, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension, by virtue of which the promises are Yea. (1) The promise of the love of God is secured in Christ. All too often we forget the riches of this truth; we lose sight of the Father’s love. Perhaps in sincere anxiety not to forget that Christ is God, we think it a dim and distant truth when we hear that the Father Almighty loved, and loves, His Son and the sinner and the world. But here again the Bible tells a different story. It shows us the love of God the Father as the very source of our salvation in Christ Jesus. “This is my beloved Son; hear ye him”; “He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all”; “the
- 100. Father himself lovethyou, because ye have loved me”; “through him we have access unto the Father”; “the Father, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope.” To know the Father—through our Lord Jesus Christ, never apart from Him, but through and in Him,—is the glorious privilege of those who have life through grace. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” The question may arise in some minds, Is there any need for proving God’s love? The question never arose except within the limits of Christianity. It is only men who have lived all their lives in an atmosphere saturated by Christian sentiment and conviction that ever come to the point of saying, “We do not want historical revelation to prove to us the fact of a loving God.” They would never have fancied that they did not need the revelation unless, unconsciously to themselves, and indirectly, all their thoughts had been coloured and illuminated by the revelation that they professed to reject. God as Love is “our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt,” and the only way to make absolutely certain of the fact that His heart is full of mercy to us is to look upon Him as He stands revealed to us, not merely in the words of Christ—for, precious as they are, these are the smallest part of His revelation—but in the life and in the death, which open for us the heart of God. Remember what He said Himself—not “He that hath listened to me doth understand the Father,” but “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “In him is the yea.” And the hopes and shadowy fore-revelations of the loving heart of God are confirmed by the fact of His life and death. “God establisheth (not “commendeth,” as our translation has it,) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” At Derby Haven in the sweet Manx land A little girl had written on the sand This legend—“God is love.” But, when I said— “What means this writing?” thus she answered— “It’s father that’s at ‘say,’ And I come here to pray, And … God is love.” My eyes grew dim— Blest child! in Heaven above Your angel sees the face of Him Whose name is love.1 [Note: T. E. Brown, Old John and Other Poems, 190.] (2) The providence of God becomes a fact in Christ. We find within us an instinct which impels us to cry for some heavenly help or guidance or support in times of crisis and distress. Even the most sceptical will often give a practical denial to their doubts by the word of prayer which is wrung from their hearts under stress of some calamity, or under the shadow of an impending
- 101. danger. In ourheart of hearts, that is to say, we feel that God personally cares and provides for this world which He has made; deep down in our being we believe that to pray is to touch the heart of the Eternal; and in moments of anguish or of supreme joy we confide in an unseen Providence as we would in our closest friend. And then comes the cold analysis of reason, and— Doubts will rise if God hath kept His promises to men. What does it all amount to? we say. Instinct?—a delusion. Providence?—a fiction of the imagination. Think of it. What do I, as an individual, count for in a world so vast, itself but a speck in an illimitable universe? How should God—if there be a God—have any personal care for me? It is the old question of the Psalmist: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him?” The most casual glance at the life and character of Jesus will give us the answer. He saw the providence of God in the wayside flower, in the feeding of the birds, in the fall of a sparrow; “the very hairs of your head are all numbered”; He who clothes the grass of the field will much more provide for the needs of the children of men. Because He was thus conscious of God in the things about Him, Jesus was calm and free from care in the midst of an angry and a striving world. In the march of events and the sure progress of the ages, He recognized the all-controlling will of God, and so He lived and died that the Father’s will might be accomplished. And then at the end, with a joy which all the cruelties of men could not suppress, He yielded Himself to the loving Providence which sent Him forth. “Father,” He said, “into thy hands I commend my spirit.” “I cannot see, I cannot speak, I cannot hear, God bless you,” was Newman’s message to his old friend Mr. Gladstone in November, 1888. Newman’s delight in men, in books, and in affairs had all his life been intense, and he had a strong desire that his life might be prolonged to its utmost possible span, if it was the will of God. “For myself, now, at the end of a long life,” he wrote, “I say from a full heart that God has never failed me, has never disappointed me, has ever turned evil into good for me. When I was young I used to say (and I trust it was not presumptuous to say it) that our Lord ever answered my prayers.”1 [Note: Alexander Whyte, Newman: An Appreciation, 61.] (3) Pardon is made sure in Christ. Every man of deep heart-experience has felt the necessity of having a clear certainty and knowledge about forgiveness. Men do not feel it always. A man can skate over the surface of the great deeps that lie beneath the most frivolous life, and may suppose, in his superficial way of looking at things, that there is no need for any definite teaching about sin, and the mode of dealing with it. But once bring that man face to face, in a quiet hour, with the facts of his life and of a Divine law, and all that superficial ignoring of evil in Himself, and of the dread of punishment and consequences, passes away. Then the only message that answers to the needs of an awakened conscience and an alarmed heart is the old-fashioned message that Jesus Christ the Righteous has died for us sinful men. All other religions have felt after a clear doctrine of forgiveness, and all have failed to find it. Here is the Divine “Yea!” And on it alone we can suspend the whole weight of our soul’s salvation. The rope that is to haul us
- 102. out of thehorrible pit and the miry clay had much need to be tested before we commit ourselves to it. There are many easy-going superficial theories about forgiveness predominant in the world to-day. Except the one that says, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sin,” they are all like the rope let down into the dark mine to lift the captives beneath, half of the strands of which have been cut on the sharp edge above, and when the weight hangs to it, it will snap. There is nothing on which a man who has once learned the tragic meaning and awful reality and depth of the fact of transgression can suspend his forgiveness, except this, that “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” In Him the promise is Yea. All human religions are founded on the principle that man must do something, or feel something, or believe something, in order to make God love him and forgive him; whereas God’s religion just contains a declaration that nothing of the kind is necessary on our part in order to make God forgive us, for that He hath déjà, already, loved us and forgiven us, and given us His Son, and in Him all things. He hath declared this to the whole race without any exception, as a truth to each individual; so that the difference between the most miserable hater of God and the happiest child of God does not consist in this, that God loves the one and does not love the other; but in this, that the one knows God’s love to himself and the other does not. It is the same difference as there is between two men standing with their faces to the sun, the one with his eyes shut and the other with his eyes open.1 [Note: Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, i. 161.] (4) The promise of holiness is ours in Christ. Here the promise, in many a varying form, is magnificently full. “These things write I unto you that ye sin not”; “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not”; “Let not sin reign in your mortal body”; “As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.” How can all this possibly be? It is impossible except in Him. The secret is not it, but He. “Christ is made unto us sanctification”; “Ye are filled full in him”; “that Christ may dwell in your hearts, by faith”; that ye may “know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” It is a magnificent truth that having come to Christ you are not merely near Him, but in Him; and in Him you have at once nothing short of Christ and all His treasures. But do not make a false use of the glorious fact. Remember that you may “have and not have.” You may receive a property and not enjoy it. You may inherit wealth and not use it. To grasp the great promises of what God can do for you, as well as the mighty encouragement of what He has done for you, is the way to “possess the possessions” and to realize the wealth. You have long rested, my friend in Christ, on the facts, the certainties, of His finished work. But have you made use enough of His never finished working? Our Christ is eternally fixed and unchanging, in His atoning merit. But He, the same Christ, is prepared immortally to grow in us, in His blessed indwelling by the Holy Spirit. Yes, the “exceeding precious promises” point us to Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, to Christ our very life, to Christ in whom we are already “enriched in everything.” Go on and use your riches, full of hope. For while your discouragements are all behind you, the great and precious promises are all in front. “Forget the things that are behind,” and step forth forward upon “the things that are before”; not upon your resolves, experiences, achievements, but on the Lord in His “precious promises.” Relying upon His promises you enter into the liberty that belongs to the children of God.1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, All in Christ, 40.]
- 103. A morning-glory bud,entangled fast Amid the meshes of its winding stem, Strove vainly with the coils about it cast, Until the gardener came and loosened them. A suffering human life entangled lay Among the tightening coils of its own past; The Gardener came, the fetters fell away, The life unfolded to the sun at last.2 [Note: Willis Boyd Allen.] (5) And the promise of the future is made sure in Him. Apart from Him the future is cloud and darkness, for a verbal revelation is not enough. We have enough of arguments; what we want is facts. We have enough of man’s peradventures about a future life, enough of evidence more or less valid to show that it is “probable,” or “not inconceivable,” or “more likely than not,” and so on and so on. What we want is that somebody shall cross the gulf and come back again. And so we get in the Resurrection of Christ the one fact on which men may safely rest their convictions of immortality. Death was above all to such as St. Paul a meeting with Jesus Christ, who was the object of his ceaseless faith, the hope of his longing heart. This man did not speculate about heaven—where it was, what it was. Nor did he imagine its glory as became a mystic like St. John. For him heaven was another name for Christ, the sum of all goodness, the revelation of all perfection. Between him and Christ there had been a long friendship, with many love-passages, which had grown more intimate every year, but had never been completed. St. Paul had heard Christ’s voice on the road to Damascus; he had seen Him in visions; for brief moments he had visited the third heavens; but face to face this great Christian may not have seen his Master as had St. Peter and St. John. For an unseen Lord he lived, laboured, suffered as none else has ever done. What wonder that St. Paul hungered and thirsted for the day when that dark servitor death would usher him into the unveiled Presence. That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows, Or decomposes but to recompose, Becomes my universe that feels and knows.1 [Note: J. Watson, The Potter’s Wheel, 161.] 3. All the promises of God, says the Apostle. He thinks of the sum-total of human blessedness, “all the promises of God.” Man has forfeited them; the conditions have not been kept; and yet the gift has been bestowed. Not even our unworthiness, so often proved, has frustrated the steadfast purpose of the grace of God. This also, this greatest example in the universe of an unshaken
- 104. purpose, has cometo us through Christ. He is, for humanity, the embodiment of the faithfulness of God. And in Him they are all certified, for He who delivered Him up, how shall He not freely give us all things? In Him is the Yea. I remember an aged minister used to say, that the most learned and knowing Christians, when they come to die, have only the same plain promises for their support as the common and unlearned; and so I find it in my old age. It is the plain promises of the gospel that are my support; and I bless God they are plain promises, which do not require much labour and pains to understand them; for I can do nothing now but look into my Bible for some promise to support me, and live upon that.1 [Note: J. Watts.] As I was coming to you to-day, my path led me by a tasteful enclosure, into which I was bold enough to enter. It was a vinery, not like those of the open field, so common in Palestine, France and Germany, but a spacious and elegant conservatory. A succession of thriving stems, twisted in form, but vigorously climbing the glass wall of the structure, at once met my eye. The long arms of the plants, with their delicate tendrils, were carefully trained along the under side of the crystal roof. The branches were covered with fresh green leaves, through whose fine tissues the sunlight agreeably passed. But what delighted me most was the rare assortment of green and purple clusters that hung above me, like inverted cones or pyramids, from amid the foliage. Their luscious beauty quite arrested me. As I stood admiring, the proprietor of the conservatory, with whom I had the happiness of being a little acquainted, came in. Observing my looks he kindly asked me if I would have a cluster, and at once he proceeded to cut down a bunch for me. The grapes were very sweet. Then, noticing that I still continued my gaze, he said, “Perhaps you would wish to take a few clusters home with you?” To this I replied, that I was at the time on my way to a company of friends, whose lips were no doubt as parched as my own had been, and that I was sure there were some among them who would be as much delighted with a cluster as myself. On which he stepped aside, and, having brought out a commodious and suitable basket, he inlaid it with vine leaves. He then cut down some of the finer clusters, and, placing these carefully on the leaves, he took the basket aside, and while his back was towards me, shut down the cover, so as to secure the delicious but fragile contents from injury. Coming forward with a pleasant smile, he handed me the basket saying, “Take this; it contains a few bunches. Share them among your friends, and give a cluster to any one whom you find prepared to receive it.” And here I am, with the basket in my hand! Let me set it down and raise the cover, so neatly fastened, and, before proceeding further, hand some of the clusters to you on this thirsty afternoon. Be assured, it will afford me as much pleasure to distribute them as it will give you to receive them. Such is my parable, for parable it is—perhaps to the disappointment of some of the younger of my auditory. The beautiful clusters I have spoken of represent the Promises of God, those exceeding great and precious promises, in which the blessings of the everlasting covenant are stored up, and by which we are said to become “partakers of the divine nature.” Now let me open the basket, and take out one of its delicate specimens. Ah, here is a beauty! We must handle it softly. See how symmetrical in shape, how perfect in form, is each grape! The fruit seems as if it would melt on the lips. What are the terms of this promise? Listen! “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: Be not dismayed; for I am thy God:
- 105. I will strengthenthee; Yea, I will help thee; Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”1 [Note: A. N. Somerville, Precious Seed, 233.] (1) No doubt, when the Apostle, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, spoke of the promises of God, the first thought that would arise in his mind would be the promises to the people of Israel: the promises of dominion and supremacy; the brilliant pictures of the Prophets; the glories foreshadowed in the lives of David and Solomon; the majesty and excellence implied in the very fact that they were the people of God’s choice. And if this thought passed, as of course it must have passed, beyond the limits of Israel after the flesh, still the promises would be the same, only in a spiritual form: the glory of the new Israel, the new Jerusalem, the new Law, the new Covenant; promises made under a figure but holding good in their essence even when the figure exists no longer. (2) Such, perhaps, would hardly be the first thought suggested to one of us by the promises of God; and, indeed, would not be the last or the crowning thought in the mind of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Far deeper and older than these are the promises which God has written with His own finger, not on tables of stone, but on the fleshy tables of the heart of man. These promises, the earliest of all God’s revelations, made to mankind before even the oldest book in the Bible was written; these promises which the loving heart finds repeated in every page of the Bible; these promises which the Bible often reveals to us in so strange a way, making us quite unable to tell whether the word within or the word without, whether the yearnings of conscience or the oracles of the Scripture, first pronounced them in our spiritual ears; these are above all the promises which Christ came to ratify and fulfil. Deep down in the heart of man there speaks a voice which calls us to God, and promises to take us to Him. And in former days, no doubt, when it spoke to those who had no revelation to interpret or confirm its sayings, what it said must have been often strange, inarticulate, even unintelligible. In dumb instincts rather than in plain commands, in voiceless longings, in yearnings for something unearthly, in strange doubts and questions did it often speak to men who had no other teaching. And even now, to those who have the Bible in their hands, but are still unawakened, or only half awakened, the voices that call from the deep abysses of the soul are faint and strange, and hard to understand, and often seem hopelessly impossible to obey. The Bible is, as it were, the grammar and the dictionary of this spiritual language, and teaches us to interpret its accents into duties and prayers and hopes and battle and assurance of victory. But even when we have the Bible, how much study we need before we can fathom the depths of spiritual meaning contained in the everlasting promises which God’s finger has written on the soul of man. Men still unawakened, or only half awakened, could not, even with the Bible in their hands, always translate the language of the spirit that speaks within them. But even the awakened, in our human sense of the word awakened, what can they do but see in a glass darkly the dim reflection of the truth of God? Yet what they see is the never-dying truth, and that truth received its final seal in the life of Christ. This, Edwin Markham, the spiritually-minded, has put for us in his rhapsody on “The Desire of
- 106. All Nations,” wherehe sees that in Christ is the one positive figure that fulfils the highest prophecies and sublimest promises that were cherished in the hearts of the world’s great nations from the most ancient days; for in Him God had answered Yea to all the desires of the people of the whole world. And when He comes into the world gone wrong, He will rebuild her beauty with a song. To every heart He will its own dream be: One moon has many phantoms in the sea. Out of the North the horns will cry to men: “Balder the Beautiful has come again!” The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead: “Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!” The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice: “Osiris comes; O tribes of Time rejoice!” And social architects who build the State, Serving the dream at citadel and gate, Will hail Him coming through the labour hum. And glad quick cries will go from man to man: Lo, He has come, our Christ the Artisan— The King who loved the lilies, He has come! Lord, the Apostle dissuadeth the Hebrews from covetousness, with this argument, because God said, I will not leave thee nor forsake thee. Yet I find not that God ever gave this promise to all the Jews, but he spake it only to Joshua when first made commander against the Canaanites; which, without violence to the analogy of faith, the Apostle applied to all good men in general. Is it so that we are heirs apparent to all promises made to thy servants in Scripture? Are the charters of grace granted to them good to me? Then will I say with Jacob, I have enough. But because I cannot entitle myself to thy promises to them, except I imitate their piety to thee; grant I may take as much care in following the one, as comfort in the other.1 [Note: Thomas Fuller, Good Thoughts in Bad Times.]
- 107. II Our Amen “Through himis the Amen.” Therefore, through Him is the great Amen of the Universal Church, attesting and acclaiming His fidelity by psalms and anthems, by every act of living faith, by the labours of time, by the triumphs of countless death-beds, where death has been without a sting, and by the songs of those within the veil. 1. Now there should be some kind of correspondence between the firmness with which we grasp, the tenacity with which we hold, the assurance with which we believe, these great truths, and the rocklike firmness and immovableness of the evidence upon which they rest. It is a poor compliment to God to come to His most veracious affirmations, sealed with the broad seal of His Son’s life and death, and to answer with a hesitating “Amen,” that falters and almost sticks in our throat. Build rock upon rock. Be certain of the certain things. Grasp with a firm hand the firm stay. Immovably cling to the immovable foundation; and though you be but like the limpet on the rock hold fast by the Rock, as the limpet does; for it is an insult to the certainty of the revelation, where there is hesitation in the believer. The sensitive paper, which records the hours of sunshine in a day, has great gaps upon its line of light answering to the times when clouds have obscured the sun; and the communication of blessings from God is intermittent, if there be intermittency of faith.1 [Note: A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ.] In happy ease I cried: “O sweetest Dusk That ever pressed a kiss on weary eyes! Bless now mine ears with murmur of thy name And noble origin.” Then answered he: “My father’s name was Night; from the embrace Of Life and Death he sprang, and wed with Rest; I am their offspring Promise, and whene’er I meet with Faith, then is Fulfilment born.”2 [Note: A. Bunston, The Porch of Paradise, 12.] 2. Our Amen is through Him. He is the Door. The truths which He confirms are so inextricably intertwined with Himself that we cannot get them and put away Him. Christ’s relation to Christ’s gospel is not the relation of other teachers to their words. We may accept the words of a Plato,
- 108. whatever we thinkof the Plato who spoke the words. But we cannot separate Christ and His teaching in that fashion, and we must have Him if you are to get it. So faith in Him, the intellectual acceptance of Him, as the authoritative and infallible Revealer, the bowing down of heart and will to Him as our Commander and our Lord, the absolute trust in Him as the foundation of all our hope and the source of all our blessedness—that is the way to certitude. And there is no other road that we can take. Not long ago, in Further India, an aged Christian convert, a man of eighty years, a surviving disciple of Adoniram Judson, was found dying, by a missionary visitor. His once strong mind was shaken by age and weakness; his thoughts failed and wandered; but when they were pointed to Christ, they settled and were clear again. When asked about his own faith in his Redeemer, his answer was strong in its simplicity: “I have hold of Him with both my hands.”1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, Christ is All, 106.] 3. If we thus keep near Him our faith will bring us the present experience and fulfilment of the promises, and we shall be sure of them, because we have them already. And whilst men are asking, “Do we know anything about God? Is there a God at all? Is there such a thing as forgiveness? Can anybody find anywhere absolute rules for his life? Is there anything beyond the grave but mist and darkness?” we can say, “One thing I know, Jesus Christ is my Saviour, and in Him I know God, and pardon and duty and sanctifying and safety and immortality; and whatever is dark, this, at least, is sun-clear. Get high enough up and you will be above the fog; and while the men down in it are squabbling as to whether there is anything outside the mist, you, from your sunny station, will see the far-off coasts, and haply catch some whiff of perfume from their shore, and see some glinting of a glory upon the shining turrets of “the city that hath foundations.” Bunyan’s stepping-stones are Scripture promises. There are other stepping-stones. Tennyson speaks of making “stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things,” and many a man, learning self-respect through failure, has blessed God for these. Again, there are yet other stepping-stones. There is a certain valley in the North where a rude path, hardly distinguishable at the best of times, leads through dangerous moss-hags, right across the centre of a morass. In rainy weather the track would be wholly obliterated but for the little foot-prints of a band of children who go to school that way. Many a traveller has found his path safely through the Slough of Despond by following in the children’s footsteps. But after all there are no such stepping-stones as God’s promises. A white boulder is a poor enough object until you see it shining in a morass; then it means life and safety. So the promises of God, that have often seemed but wayside facts of no particular interest, shine suddenly with the very light of salvation when we see them in the Slough of Despond.2 [Note: John Kelman, The Road, i. 21.] The Yea and the Amen
- 109. Third Millennium StudyBible Notes on 2 Corinthians 1:18-22 Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ - 2 Corinthians 1:18-22 Hughes states: Christ's integrity is Paul's integrity. The reason underlying this radical truth ethic for Paul was Christ himself. "As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory" (2 Cor. 1:18-20). Jesus Christ was and is the prophetic "Yes." Philip Hughes gives eloquent expression to the significance of Paul's statement: In Christ is the yes, the grand consummating affirmative, to all God's promises. He is the horn of salvation raised up for us by God, "as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets which have been since the world began" (Luke 24:44). The covenant promises addressed to Abraham and his seed are realized in His single person (Gal. 3:16). To the believer, therefore, Christ is all, not merely as fulfilling a word of the past, but as Himself being the very living Word of God, faithful and eternal. In Him all fullness dwells (Col. 1:19): wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption are to be found in Him alone (1 Cor. 1:30). There is nothing which is not in Him, who is the First and the Last, the Beginning and End (Rev. 22:13). Because Christ is the grand consummating Yes - God's unambiguous, ultimate Yes - he is the ground and fulcrum of all Christian ethics. Those who are in Christ and embrace him as the Yes with all their hearts embrace truth - and truth-telling as a way of life. Nothing could be more dissonant and logically contradictory than to accuse the Apostle Paul (whose whole being was dedicated to preaching Christ) of playing with the truth! Paul's behavior was centered upon and in the character and actions of Christ. In the final analysis, Christ fulfills all the promises of God to his people - they are Yes in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). We can rely completely on Christ's ability to grant the mercies of God to his followers. See WLC 57; BC 37; HC 129. 1 Corinthians 1:21-22 is a Trinitarian passage; "God . . . Christ . . . Spirit," pointing to the role of all three divine persons in salvation. See "The Trinity: One God or Three?" below. See WCF 18.2; HC 1, 49, 53. Paul says to the Corinthians to stand firm. Pratt says: "Stand firm" (bebaioo) describes believers' faithful devotion to Christ. Instead of letting them waver or stumble, God had empowered Paul and the Corinthians to remain committed to Christ. The perseverance of those who were taught by Paul indicated God's blessing and validated Paul's ministry."
- 110. The ability tocontinue on in the Christian life does not come from within oneself; it is a gift from God. We are saved by grace and continue by grace (cf. Gal. 3:3). Saints repent when they initially come to Christ, but true Christians continue to exercise this gift (true repentance is a gift, 2 Tim. 2:24-26; cf. 2 Cor. 7:10) throughout their lives here upon earth (cf. 1 John 1:9). God always continues to give this ability to all those who are truly born again (Phil. 1:6; 1 Pet. 1:5). Those who are thus guarded by God will continue to trust in Christ throughout their lives (2 Cor. 13:5; Col. 1:23; Heb. 3:14), because God's guarding of them is carried out through their faith (2 Cor. 1:24; 1 Pet. 1:5). See "The Perseverance and Preservation of Believers: Can I Lose My Salvation?" below. Paul uses the word "anointed." Gorgan states: "Anointing" is a service concept. The idea is employed in the Old Testament, where kings and priests were regularly anointed with oil as a sign that their equipment for service came from God and not from themselves. The term "anoint" is also used very occasionally in connection with Old Testament prophets (as in 1 Kings 19:16), and of course in a number of passages they are said to be endued with the Spirit of God for their work (as in Micah 3:8). The Messiah, the Christ, is of course the supremely-anointed One. The way Paul uses these two words Christos and chrisas here suggests the profound idea, well worth exploring, that the particular service each of us has to engage in arises out of the vocation of Christ. He is the supreme Servant of God and although his service had elements of uniqueness, all service that is true must have qualities that remind us of his devoted life and willing submission to God's will and purpose. If we are anointed in Christ this also implies that our service can only be fulfilled in that fellowship with Christ which union with him makes possible. For the Christian, too, anointing has connection with the Holy Spirit, for it was under his anointing that the Lord Jesus carried out his distinctive work. See especially Hebrews 9:14, where Christ is said to have offered himself without spot to God through the eternal Spirit. We too can only work effectively for God when we are under the Spirit's anointing. Paul will make explicit reference to the Holy Spirit soon. Christ's anointing is mentioned in Luke 4:18, Acts 4:26-27 and Acts 10:38. Here Paul used a related Greek verb as a reminder that God - just as he had anointed Jesus for service and ministry - has anointed believers, not with literal oil, but with the power of the Holy Spirit, to confirm and empower them in various ministries and areas of service (1 John 2:20, 27; compare the gifts in 1 Cor.). Paul furthers his argument by mentioning God's "seal of ownership." An official seal marked authority or ownership and guaranteed protection (Esther 8:8; Dan. 6:17; Matt. 27:66; Rev. 7:3). Barnett says, '"he set his seal of ownership on us" returns to and reinforces the commercial imagery associated with "he guarantees." The seal - often in wax - is a mark of ownership, but also a guarantee of authenticity. Here the seal is nothing less than the Spirit himself, by whom God has marked believers as his own ultimate possession. As in Eph 1:13 and 4:30, the seal is here also eschatological. On the day of redemption God will take possession of those who are already sealed as his own.' See "Regeneration and New Birth: Must I Be Born Again?" A deposit (NIV) means a guaranteeing what is to come. This phrase translates a single Greek word that signifies a down payment that includes a guarantee of payment of the remaining amount. God has given us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of the complete inheritance of all the blessings of salvation in the new heavens and new earth (2 Cor. 5:5; Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14).
- 111. In this pericope(series of verses), Paul places a great deal of emphasis on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has transformed the saint's life. He has redeemed us, anointed us, sealed us, guaranteeing what is to come! How great a salvation (Heb. 2:3). Jesus' words are being fulfilled (John 14:15-18, 26; 15:26-27, etc.). See "The Holy Spirit: Do All Believers Have the Holy Spirit?" below. Our Amen to the Glory of God “All the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” - 2 Corinthians 1:20 Today we finish our yearlong study of the major doctrines of the Christian faith as they are summarized in the Heidelberg Catechism (HC). We have arrived finally at question and answer 129, the concluding question and answer of the catechism. It is a fitting place to end our study, as the question and answer before us deal with the “little word ‘Amen,’” which is used throughout Scripture to conclude the prayers of the people of God (1 Chron. 16:36; Ps. 41:13; Rom. 11:36). Our English term amen is a direct transliteration from the Greek and Hebrew, and it means something like “let it be so” or “it is true and sure.” Essentially, it is a word of affirmation that is spoken to confirm the veracity of the prayer or confession to which it is appended. Although the word amen does not appear in either version of the Lord’s Prayer given to us in the Gospels (Matt. 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4), the church was certainly wise to incorporate it into the liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer because the Word of God so often uses amen at the end of prayers and doxologies. By saying “amen” at the end of the Lord’s Prayer and every prayer that we model according to its structure, we are expressing our confidence that God surely hears our prayer and will respond according to His sovereign will. The term amen is also typically uttered when we conclude a recitation of the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed. When we say “amen” at the close of a creed, we are adding further affirmation to what we have confessed. We are saying, “Yes, we surely believe in everything that we have just confessed.” As Christians, this means we are acknowledging that we are sinners who have fallen far short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23; 5:12–21; HC 1–11). Confessing “amen” means that we believe the triune God saves us through Christ alone, not on account of anything that we have done but solely on account of His good pleasure (Eph. 2:8–9; Heb. 9:13–14; HC 12–53, 59–64). In saying “amen,” we affirm that God unites us to Christ and His church, sustaining our faith through the preached Word and the sacraments (1 Cor. 10:16; 12:12–31; HC 54–58, 65–80). Thus, we are equipped to serve the Lord in gratitude for our salvation, seeking God’s help in constant, effectual prayer (Eph. 2:10; 1 Thess. 5:17; HC 81–129). May we say “amen” to this confession to the end of our days, that we would die in faith and see the Lord’s eternal glory. Coram Deo The Christian faith is simple enough for anyone to grasp and yet so rich that a lifetime of study will not exhaust our need to plumb the depths of our holy religion as it is revealed in sacred
- 112. Scripture. As weseek to serve God, let us be ever aware of how much more we need to know about our Creator and His work so as to keep us from taking pride in our own knowledge. Let us also use our understanding of the faith to promote the gospel and worship our holy Lord in true humility. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/our-amen-to-the-glory-of-god/