“When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall
see his seed… he shall see of the travail of his
soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:10,11).
“For
they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither,
because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all
children… That is, it is not the children of the
flesh that are children of God; but the children of the
promise are reckoned for a seed” (Romans 9:6-8).
“Know therefore that they which
be of faith, the same are sons of Abraham”
(Galatians 3:7).
In our
further consideration of this matter of “his
seed”, “the travail of his soul”; in our
seeking of a fresh apprehension of that upon which the
heart of the Lord is set — a divine and spiritual
seed, born out of His travail — we will turn to
another fragment of Scripture: “Know therefore that
they which be of faith, the same are sons of
Abraham.”
There
is one supreme characteristic of this divine seed, and
that is faith. Whether we like it or not, Christianity
rests upon one word and that word is FAITH. The
beginning, the continuation, and the consummation of the
Christian life rests upon that one thing — faith. It
relates to salvation, initially; it relates to and
governs the whole course of progress, spiritually; it
relates to service; it relates to prayer; it relates to
the perfecting of the believer; it relates to final
victory. There is no phase, no aspect, no stage of the
Christian life which is not bound up with this issue. It
is, from beginning to end, at all times, in all things,
just a matter of faith, and it is just here that we find
the weakest point in human nature. There is no doubt
about it, sooner or later, we discover that this is our
weakest point. There was a time when I used to look at
certain people who seemed to have natural faith, with
whom it seemed not to be a difficult thing at all to
believe in God; it seemed quite natural to them to
believe in God, they seemed to have no difficulty about
it. Here was I, born with an unbelieving heart and an
infidel mind, and they seemed to have none of those
difficulties. But I have lived a few years, and I have
watched those people, and I have seen them come to a time
and a place where the most difficult thing in all the
world for them was to believe God. Sooner or later we
discover that this is our weakest point.
Faith and God’s Good Pleasure
But,
on the other hand, this is the strongest point in the
divine nature. This matter of faith, then, is basic to
our union with God. This strength of faith in the divine
nature, and weakness as to faith in our nature, cannot
exist and obtain together in a true union; they are
contradictions, they are quite against one another. And
the issue is: it is either God or ourselves. Union with
God always rests upon this matter of faith. The same is
true of communion, the continuation of union and living
in the good of it, the expression of union —
communion. It is all a matter of faith. It is a matter of
God’s pleasure in us, and that is an important
matter: “Without faith it is impossible to be
well-pleasing unto him.” Now that goes very deep. It
is possible for God to bless us and to use us as
instruments, but at the same time not to take pleasure in
us; we are just being used by the Lord, and yet we know
that the Lord is not taking pleasure in using us: He is
doing it all in sheer grace and mercy. You may not be
able to understand that, but it is true. Somewhere, even
in the servant, there may be a reservation about the
Lord, which holds up the Lord’s good pleasure in His
servant. There is something more than having blessing
from the Lord; something even more than being used by the
Lord — the Lord having delight in us. And, mark you,
the point at which the delight factor comes in is just
this matter of faith. It does not say “without faith
it is impossible to get any blessings from the Lord, it
is impossible to do any work for the Lord”, but it
does say, “without faith it is impossible to be
well-pleasing to the Lord.”
Faith and the Divine Virtues
And
then what a great number of other things depend upon and
rest upon this foundation of faith. I only mention them
and leave you to think them out. Love rests upon faith.
Think about that. It depends upon faith, does it not? Joy
rests upon faith. We know how miserable we are, if we
have lost our faith, or if we have got any doubts or
questions. It is only when faith is clear and bright that
we are really happy. You see, joy hangs upon faith. And
does not peace hang upon it? If you like, change the word
for rest, that is the biblical way of putting it —
rest. Peace just rests upon faith. There is no rest or
peace unless there is faith. Then again, meekness. What
is the opposite of meekness? Well, it is a trying to
force things, to assert ourselves; doing out from
ourselves, trying to hold our own ground, vindicate
ourselves. Faith undercuts all that, does it not? We need
not worry at all about anything; we can be perfectly
restful about issues if we have faith. Patience —
well, it is so obvious, is it not? Patience rests upon
faith. Those two things are put together in the Word of
God. And so are all the other things — hope and
longsuffering and kindness — all the divine virtues
rest upon the foundation of faith. And if the faith is
not there, these other things are either wanting or they
are weak. It is a tremendous matter, this matter of
faith. If you look in the Bible you will see that all the
tragedies and the calamities there resulted from a lack
of faith. The first great tragedy and calamity of what is
called the Fall came about simply because faith failed,
was not there. Israel’s tragedy in the wilderness?
— it was the same reason. Israel’s going into
exile and captivity? — the same reason. And perhaps
worst of all, it is the cause of Israel’s present
setting aside. There are personal instances, such as
Abraham’s lapse resulting in Ishmael, and the
bringing in of a perpetual open sore in the history of
God’s interests in this world. There are many more,
but we pass on: the tragedies and calamities, whether
personal, national, or collective, can all be traced to
this one cause: a breakdown somewhere in this matter of
faith.
Faith and the Character of God
Now
faith is always faith. That may sound like a platitude,
but faith will always be objective; it will always focus
upon the very character of God. That is faith’s
focal point — the very character of God. And
remember that any weakness or absence of faith — I
am speaking of course about spiritual faith — is an
impugning of the character of God. That is where our
Bible begins: “Hath God said…?” Man’s
initial and all-inclusive breakdown began with an
impugning of the character of God, a calling into
question of the character of God, a throwing of doubt
upon the character of God. And so it has always been,
because, you see, the focal point of faith is nothing
less or other than the very character of God. Whether we
will believe that God is what He says He is — that
is the ultimate matter in relation to faith. But it is
always FAITH. We are always wanting faith to be
something other than faith, trying to substitute
something else, either sight, or experience, or what we
get, what God does for us. But God always keeps things in
the realm where, after all, it is faith. He never moves
out of that realm.
“True Israel” — the
Seed of Faith
Look
at the tremendous implications of this one fragment of
Paul’s statements on this matter of faith in
Galatians 3:7: “They which be of faith, the same are
sons of Abraham” — are Abraham’s seed. He
has said that not all they that be of Abraham are
children — are the seed: “He saith not, And to
seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which
is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). This is the true seed, the
seed which is of and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
1) The covenant
For a
moment or two let us look at this further implication of
Abraham’s seed with whom the covenant was made. We
are referring now not to “Israel after the
flesh”, but to the spiritual counterpart which, as
we see in the Scriptures, is that which is born out of
the travail of Christ, the fruit of His Cross, the
reproduction and multiplication of Himself as THE corn
of wheat, the fruit of His having fallen into the ground
and died. This is the seed. All the covenant promises
made to Abraham are fulfilled and realised in Christ and
His seed. We inherit all that. Of course, we are familiar
with this as truth, but it all comes to us through faith
in Jesus Christ, because we are the true seed promised to
Abraham. Let us, then, look briefly at Abraham as
God’s great example of faith. God carried through
the whole system of His purpose from eternity to eternity
— in creation, in redemption and in established
fulfilment — through the soul of one man. Yes,
Abraham rightly has a large place. It is as though God,
in prospect, forced through the very soul of that man the
whole plan of His divine purpose and redemption, and it
was all on the principle of faith, by a long succession
of demands for faith. It is here written for our
instruction.
2) The land
First,
there is the promise of a land. “Get thee out of thy
country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s
house, unto the land that I will shew thee.” Then He
promised him that land — “I will give
thee” was His promise and His covenant. Abraham left
his country and, subsequently, his father’s house,
and came into the land. All his lifetime he went up and
down in it, dwelling in tents, and never obtained a
foothold. That is true, if we view things in strict
accordance with the covenant and promise. We can read the
story in a few minutes, but the record covers many years.
There
was plenty of scope for question and doubt through the
years with all the demand for patience. The difficulties,
the trials, and the adversities of many years, provided
plenty of evidence for saying, “I have made a
mistake, a fundamental mistake, I had an idea: evidently
I was wrong. Something happened and I have come out on a
wrong line altogether. Nothing that I imagined I was told
is being supported” — there is plenty of room
for all that sort of thing. We could enlarge upon it, but
I do not think we could exaggerate what Abraham had to
encounter in his own soul on that one question of the
land.
3) The seed
But
that is not all, he was promised a seed — “In
thy seed shall all the families of the earth be
blessed” — “thy seed”, “thy
seed”, again and again that word is spoken by God in
covenant to Abraham. He was promised a seed — and,
not a child, not one! On natural grounds, there was
little or no prospect of anything like that. His own
situation utterly contradicted God’s promises
concerning this seed. There is plenty of room there, is
there not, to have a controversy with the Lord and to
have all sorts of tangles in the soul? What a mess one
could get into with a situation like that! And it was not
just for a day, or a week, or a month, or even a year,
that Abraham had to cope with this problem.
And
further, God came and repeated this, reiterated this, and
focused down this matter of faith upon the child Isaac.
He promised him this child when all natural hope had
receded, and went away and left him with the promise for
a few more years! It was just something said to him, and
there was nothing to support or bear it out in actuality.
God went away and left him! If the hope had receded far
back to the horizon before the promise was actually
crystallised, surely it has gone beyond the horizon now.
God had said it would come to pass and is leaving him
with THAT situation! And then, the child is given.
Yes, the son is born. We know the great test of faith
that came in with that period between the promise and the
realisation. Even Abraham broke down and failed. We know
about Ishmael, but we leave that. In spite of everything,
the child is born, there is the infant, and with what
wonder they must have looked at that child. There is the
little child growing up in their home, and how they must
have cherished him in the light of all that God had bound
up with his life. He grows up to youth, no doubt an
object of great love, care, devotion, watchfulness and
expectation. And then the blow fell: “Take now thy
son, thine only son, whom thou lovest” — God
seems to be rubbing salt into the wound, does He not?
“Thine ONLY son”, he had no other,
“whom thou lovest… and offer him”. Well,
we need not press this further. Abraham went on, came to
his very old age, and died — not having received the
promise. “These all died in faith,” says the
writer to the Hebrews, “not having received the
promises.” No, he had not inherited the land, he had
not seen the seed in any commensurate way, but he died in
faith — that is the point. Through it all faith
survived.
Now we
must break off there. “They which be of faith”
are Abraham’s seed, THIS seed, these
children, this people, this true Israel of God is on that
basis, on that principle, and after that kind. Let us
make no mistake about it. I started by saying,
“whether we like it or not”, and we do not like
it. It is the hardest, the most difficult thing, but
there it is — the matter of believing God, not
because of what He can do or will do, but because of what
He IS. That goes a long way, and very deep
down; it tries us on everything — God’s
postponements, God’s delays, God’s seeming
contradictions and paradoxes, a thousand and one things.
The end is, after all, what are we going to do about it? IS
God? And is God WHAT HE SAYS HE IS OR NOT? Our
interpretation, our argument, our position, our mind
about things — does it really set God aside? Does
it? Or is our attitude that of faith? — GOD KNOWS
WHAT HE IS DOING.
We
could carry that into the realm of spiritual life. You
know, in our spiritual lives, in our spiritual growth and
the perfecting of us in the likeness of Christ, there are
many things that we think the Lord ought to have removed
long ago, and He has not removed them — even matters
of our character. If we could, we would have God make us
absolutely sinless this very moment, and He does not! He
is dealing with us on the matter of faith, even over
spiritual transformation. And how many other things would
we have God do for His own glory, and He does not do
them; for the facilitation of His own interests and work,
and He does not do them. Well, either God is, or He is
not; either He is faithful or He is not; either He is
consistent or He is not. You see, after all, we are
brought back to this question of faith. “They which
be of faith” are Abraham’s seed. What is
Abraham’s seed? — Christ and those born out of
His travail. And what travail there is related to the
fruit of faith! Now there is no real fruit that is not
the fruit of travail, and travail is always a matter of
faith.