Faith: Life

Romans 1:17—“For therein is the righteousness of God reveled from faith to faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”

Galatians 3:11—“But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.”

Hebrews 10:38—“Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.”

When the Spirit of God frequently repeats himself, he thereby appeals for special attention.

A doctrine so often declared must be of the first importance.

A doctrine so often declared should be constantly preached.

A doctrine so often declared should be unhesitatingly received by each one of our hearers.

I. WE WILL TREAT THE FOUR TEXTS AS ONE.

The teaching is clear. “The just shall live by his faith.”

1. Life is received by the faith which makes a man just.

   • A man begins to live by a full acquittal from condemnation, and from penal death, so soon as he believes in Jesus.
   • A man begins to live as one raised out of spiritual death so soon as he has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
   • No form of works, or profession, or knowledge, or even of natural feelings, can prove him to be an absolved and quickened man; but faith does this.

2. Life is sustained by the faith which keeps a man just.

   • He who is forgiven and quickened lives ever afterwards as he began to live—namely, by faith. Neither his feelings, nor devotions, nor acquirements ever become his trust: he still looks out of himself to Jesus. He is nothing except so far as he is a believer.
   • He lives by faith as to all the forms of his life,—
   • As a child, and as a servant;
   • As a pilgrim progressing, and as a warrior contending;
   • As a pensioner enjoying, and as an heir expecting.
   • He lives by faith in every condition,—
   • In joy and in sorrow; in wealth and in poverty;
   • In strength and in weakness; in laboring and in languishing; in life and in death.
   • He lives best when faith is at its best, even though in other respects he may be sorely put to it. He lives the life of Christ most blessedly when most intensely he believes in Christ.
   • Hearty belief in God, his Son, his promises, his grace, is the soul’s life, neither can anything take its place. “Believe and live” is a standing precept both for saint and sinner. “Now abides faith.” 1 Corinthians 13:13.

II. WE WILL TREAT THE FOUR TEXTS SEPARATELY.

If we read with precision, we shall see that Scripture contains no repetitions. The context gives freshness of meaning to each apparent repetition.

1. Our first text (Habakkuk 2:4) exhibits faith as enabling a man to live on in peace and humility, while as yet the promise has not come to its maturity. While waiting, we live by faith, and not by sight.

   • We are thus able to bear up under the temporary triumphs of the wicked. See the first chapter of Habakkuk’s prophecy.
   • We are thus preserved from proud impatience at delay.
   • We are thus filled with delight in confident expectation of good things to come.

2. Our second text (Romans 1:17) exhibits faith as working salvation from the evil which is in the world through lust. The chapter in which it stands presents an awful view of human nature, and implies that only faith in the gospel can bring us life in the form of—

   • Mental enlightenment of life as to the true God: Romans 1:19–23.
   • Moral purity of life: Romans 1. verse 24, and onward.
   • Spiritual life and communion with that which is divine and holy.
   • Naturally men are dead and corrupt. The law reveals our death, see Romans 3:10–20; but the gospel imparts spiritual life to those who receive it by faith.

3. Our third text (Galatians 3:11) exhibits faith as bringing to us that justification which saves us from the sentence of death.

   • Nothing can be plainer, more positive, more sweeping than this declaration that no man is justified before God except by faith. Both the negative and the positive are plain enough.

4. Our fourth text (Hebrews 10:38) exhibits faith as the life of final perseverance.

   • There is need of faith while waiting for Heaven (verses 32–36).
   • The absence of such faith would cause us to draw back (verse 38).
   • That drawing back would be a fatal sign.
   • That drawing back can never occur, for faith saves the soul from all hazards, keeping its face heavenwards even to the end.
   • What can you do who have no faith?
   • In what other way can you be accepted with God?
   • On what ground can you excuse your unbelief in your God?
   • Will you perish sooner than believe him?

Breviates

The Jews in the Talmud have the saying, “The whole law was given to Moses at Sinai, in six hundred and thirteen precepts.” David, in the fifteenth Psalm, brings them all within the compass of eleven. Isaiah brings them to six (Isaiah 33:15); Micah to three (Micah 6:8); Isaiah, again, to two (Isaiah 56); Habakkuk to this one, “The just shall live by his faith.”—Lightfoot.

The soul is the life of the body. Faith is the life of the soul. Christ is the life of faith.—Flavel.

Inscribed upon the portal from afar

Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,

Legible only by the light they give

Stand the soul-quickening words—BELIEVE AND LIVE.—Cowper.

To believe God is not a little thing: it is the index of a heart reconciled to God, and the token of true spirituality of mind; it is the essence of true worship, and the root of sincere obedience. He who believes his God in spite of his sins, does him more honor than cherubim and seraphim in their continual adoration. A little thing faith! How is it then that unbelief is so great a crime that it is marked out for reprobation as the one damning evil which shuts men out of Heaven? Despise not faith lest you despise God. Whatever else you put in the second place, give faith the lead; it is not a vain thing, for it is your life.