Note 52 — Quest. LXXII., LXXIII.

“Abraham believed God and it was imputed or counted to him for righteousness.” This passage of Scripture is found with little variation also in the Epistle to the Galatians (iii. 6.) and in the Epistle of James (ii. 23.) and in each of the places it seems to have been introduced in support of its context from the first book of Moses. (xv. 6.)

Moses is giving at that place a visionary (as we suppose) correspondence between Jehovah and Abraham; in which the Lord promises to the patriarch to be his “shield and exceeding great reward,” and upon Abraham’s complaining that he was childless, his attention is directed to the stars, and he is told that it will be equally impracticable to number his posterity, and then follow the words “Abraham believed in^[53] the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

Here it is given as an old-testament proof of that which has been a little before asserted “that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law,” but because this doctrine would seem to make void the law, the apostle states this objection, then denies it with abhorrence, and introduces for his support Abraham’s justification before God, “if Abraham were justified by works he hath whereof to glory, but not before God; for what saith the scriptures? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

In the letter to the christians of Galatia he aims to bring them back from depending on their obedience to the moral and ceremonial laws, to a reliance upon Christ for salvation, he declares that “by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” in the sight of God; and that christians are “dead to the law,” “seek to be justified by Christ,” and “live by the faith of the Son of God.” He asserts “if righteousness come by the law then Christ is dead in vain.” He charges the Galatians with folly. After having heard, seen, and experienced the doctrines of the Gospel, its extraordinary and ordinary spiritual powers, to go back to dead works would argue something like fascination. And then to show that the Gospel mode of justification by faith was not peculiar to the Gospel he quotes from the book of Genesis these words; “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

The apostle James reprehends such as profess to be believers and yet are not careful to maintain good works; such professions of faith are less credible than the fruits of holiness; “show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.” Faith without works he pronounces to be dead, not merely inoperative, but destitute of a living principle. He then introduces Abraham’s example of offering up Isaac as a proof of his faith; this work being a manifest effect of his faith in God, justifies, in the sight of all men, his character as a believer, “and the scripture” he says “was fulfilled which saith Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.” The offering up of Isaac, having taken place several years after it had been said that “Abraham believed God,” was an undeniable evidence of the truth, and a fulfilment, of that scripture.

Abraham’s faith here mentioned has been understood as implying both the act of believing God’s promises and his yielding to the call of God by emigrating, &c.^[54] which faith, and its fruits, though an imperfect righteousness, was, it is alleged, by the favour of God accepted as a justifying righteousness.

But the apostle here contrasts faith with works, and denies a justification before God to be attainable by our obedience, consequently his introduction of Abraham’s justification by his good deeds would have destroyed his own argument.

Others^[55] understand Abraham to have been justified on the account of the mere act of believing: and this has been confined to his faith in the one promise of a numerous posterity.

That the Lord^[56] “in judging Abraham will place on one side of the account his duties, and on the other his performances, and on the side of his performances he will place his faith, and by mere favour value it equal to a complete performance of his duty, and reward him as if he were a perfectly righteous person.”

Faith is the mind’s assent to external evidence; faith thus strictly considered as an act, is man’s act, as much so as any can be, and as the understanding at least in its application to the evidence must be accompanied by the consent of the will, here is every thing that is necessary to constitute a work, and accordingly it is commanded as a duty, the neglect of which is criminal. If it be thus that faith justifies the believer in the sight of God, then there is no propriety in saying we are not justified by works, and if it were possible still less in adducing the example of Abraham’s justification by that which was no more than a duty to prove that we cannot be justified by works, “Christ being the end of the law for righteousness to every one who believeth.” If man can be so justified boasting is not excluded he has whereof to glory.

But the design of the apostle was to show that Abraham himself one of the holiest of men with all his good deeds, and implicit obedience to divine commands was not justified for his own holiness or godliness, for that is the opinion he is combating, but by what he calls faith. When the things which we are required to believe are of a spiritual nature, the “carnal mind” requires to be freed from its prejudices before it will “receive them,” and because supernatural aid is necessary to such minds and all naturally possess them, such “faith” must unquestionably be “the gift of God” in a sense higher than that of every other species of faith exercised under the support of Divine Providence. If faith is a gift of God it merits nothing for us, can never create an obligation on Divine justice for remuneration, and so can never be a justifying righteousness.

In his epistle to the Galatians that which he terms a being “justified by faith” he also denominates a being “justified by faith in Christ” so that his justifying faith is not merely a belief of the truth of what God has spoken, but is connected in some manner with Christ, and that it is not the mere act of believing in Christ which is the ground of such justification is plain from this, that he expresses the same thing by the words, “being justified by Christ.” If it is true that we are justified by faith, and also justified by Christ, it must be meant in different senses, and to give effect to these words thus differently connected, it seems necessary to suppose the righteousness of Christ as the meritorious cause or ground of justification, and faith the instrumental. “To as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on his name,” or at least as the concomitant of it, where all other requisites exist as well as grace for its production.

It is not the holiness of his faith that is accounted for righteousness to him: faith is a holy duty but not more so than some others, and not so much so as love, “now abide faith, hope, love, and the greatest of these is love;” nor are christians ever said to be justified by love, joy, peace, patience, or by any other grace, except by faith. From whence it follows that it is not the holiness of faith for which the believer is justified, and yet that there is some property not common to any other grace or duty, which must be concerned in our justification; and no doubt it is because faith lays hold on him for whose sake alone we can be justified.

Or faith may be put for its object, as the words fear, hope, joy, and love are; God is our fear, our hope, &c. “Thy faith hath saved thee,” it was not her faith, but its object, Christ’s power, that healed her.

The seed which was promised embraced Christ, whose day Abraham saw afar off; so this faith had the Redeemer for its object. In the epistle to the Galatians there follow the quotation these words, “as many as are of faith are the children of Abraham,” these are called his spiritual seed, and believe in Christ, now if all who believe in Christ are thereby the children of Abraham, and Abraham their father or pattern of faith, his faith must have been of the same kind. There could have been little propriety in giving a faith of any other kind as a pattern to those who are to believe in Christ that they may be “justified by his blood.”