John Bellett - The Patriarchs

There is nothing in the heart of man like faith in this gospel. The faith of a poor sinner in the redeeming grace of God is the most beautiful condition the soul can be in. As saints, beloved, we may trust God for our need. We may look to Him for counsel, or for provision. We may trust Him to vindicate our doings, comfort us in sorrow, and strengthen us in difficulties. But the faith of a sinner, in the justifying grace and work of His divine Saviour, transcends them all. Nothing is so precious, for nothing apprehends God in so glorious a character, or gives Him to the soul in so wondrous a relationship. This faith it is which uses the richest resources in God, and acts upon the most blessed discoveries of Him. For while all the ways of His glory shine brightly-His strength, and comfort, and wisdom for His needy saints-yet, that He has grace and salvation for sinners, this excelleth them all.

The Spirit of God, in these early times, gives us some most precious samples of this most precious faith; as though (may I say it?) delighting in such a thing, He produced an impression of the finest character at once , as soon as occasion served.

Thus Adam, in his faith, talked only of life, though in the midst of death-death, which he himself had brought in, a standing witness against him. He was doomed to be an outcast in a scene of ruin which his own sin had produced. He knew this and allowed it. But he had listened to the story of the conflict between his destroyer and the woman's Seed. In the very place of judgment-from among the trees of the garden, where conscience had driven him-his ear had caught the sound of the sweet gospel, not of mercy merely, but propitiation and victory, and forth he comes, talking of life. He called his wife "Eve," the mother of all living. All life was in the promised Kinsman-Redeemer. In creation Adam himself had been constituted head of life-"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth;" but that, in his esteem, was now forfeited and gone. Life must flow in a new channel-"He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."

How grand in its very simplicity all this was! And there was recovery also of moral glory, in a great sense, in all this. Adam had not submitted himself to the majesty of God, but affected to be as God. But now he does submit himself to the righteousness of God. His shoulders bowed themselves to receive the covering wrought for his nakedness by God's own hand. See Rom. x. 3. He was now honouring God the Redeemer, though he had just before been doing all he could to dishonour God the Creator-so simply was he led by the Spirit to value the divine provision for a sinner in the promise of our bruised but victorious Kinsman.

In like manner, Eve. She had listened to the same promise, and therefore, as soon as she had brought forth her first-born, she gives witness that this promise lived chief in the thoughts of her heart. "I have gotten a man from the Lord," said she. She as much overlooked herself as Adam did. She gloried only in her Seed. She had listened to the promise with too faithful an ear to mistake herself for her Seed. It was not over herself, but over him, that she now, in the language of another mother, was singing, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour!" There was a mistake here, it is true. But there was witness how the object of faith filled her visions, and the expectations of faith stirred in her heart. And so soon as disastrous events manifest her mistake, and prove to her that this first-born of her womb was anything rather than the promised Seed-that instead of being the bruiser of the serpent's head, he turned out to be the murderer of his brother-still is she found on the rock where faith had fixed her soul. "Let God be true, but every man a liar," was her triumph. Over Seth she exclaims, "God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." Though every cistern fail, she knows the fountain cannot. One son had been a murderer, and another his victim; but still God is true. "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever ; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations."

Precious faith, we may say, "like precious faith," with Adam, and with us, beloved. So Abel. Faith in him had respect to the same promise, the same gospel. The word had spoken of a bruised Deliverer; and accordingly it is a victim, a bruised or bloody sacrifice, he lays on God's altar. But not only so. He brings the fat of the victim likewise. He knows the delight which God Himself takes in the provisions of His own grace. He knows that He is pleased with the work of His own hand. He understands that God is a cheerful giver, that there is no grudging in the gift of grace. In spirit he hears the music which the Father's command has awakened in His own house over His returned prodigal. In the delight with which God Himself had clothed the naked sinner with coats which His own hand had willingly wrought (a happier task than even the six days of creation), the faith of Abel seems to glory. And as thus the richest joy that is felt in all the costly mystery of redemption is felt by God Himself, he lays the richest part of the victim, the fat of the animal, on the altar, making that the Lord's own portion in this feast of love and joy, in His own house, and at His own table.

This was another most excellent sample of a sinner's faith. Abel, in spirit, was in Luke xv. – that chapter which tells us that the Lord's own joy in it may account for the gospel. And all these are pattern works of the Spirit, forming the faith of sinners. There is no questioning of God's grace, no uneasy reflections on creature-worthlessness, though there was plenty of cause for that. The strength, the liberty, the triumph of the promise live in their souls.

And let me add, that if the confession of Lamech (chapter iv. 23, 24) be the utterance of a convicted believing sinner (as I believe it is), it is only another equally fine expression of this same early and excellent faith. It is of an order worthy to stand with that of Adam, or of Eve, or of Abel; fervent, strong, unquestioning, and full of liberty.

God's word to Cain had revealed a great truth-that He, and He alone , has to do with a sinner. Others, like Abel, may suffer; but all sin is directly done against God, and He asserts His title to deal with it alone. "Whosoever slayeth Cain [the Lord therefore says], vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold."

This great truth, so unspeakably precious to faith, Lamech seems to have received and fed upon, until his whole soul triumphed in it. Not merely preservation from man, like Cain, does he count upon, but salvation , "the salvation of God." Learning that as a sinner he was alone with God, he takes that place, and there discovers how God can deal with him, even in the security and provisions of grace; and that discovery is the light in which his soul at once walks. Like Job, afterwards, he publishes his confession far and wide. "Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech," he says; "hearken unto my speech." Then in true gospel intelligence he magnifies sin, and owns that it was his destruction. "I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt." But then again, in true gospel simplicity, he much more magnifies grace. "If Cain be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." In his thoughts, "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." He is of the very mind and temper of Paul. His confidence and victory are apostolic. He seems to sing-

A glorious sight his faith takes of the whole mystery, and of the boundlessness and riches of grace. He listens to the provisions of grace (when alone with God), and the charging of the law, the accusings of Satan, the alarms of conscience, and the self-righteous reproaches of men, are not heard. 1 1 I do not, however, assume that Lamech was a murderer; but he could identify himself with such. With Paul, he could, in the sense of what he was before God, speak of himself as chief of sinners. And we know also that the repentant Remnant of the latter day will, in their confession, quite take the place of blood-guiltiness after this manner. They will look to Him whom they pierced. They will, in the spirit of Daniel or Nehemiah, make themselves one with the guilty nation.