Romans 4:3, 19-24
Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Why does any man dare to believe in Christ? “Well,” says one man, “I summoned faith to believe in Christ because I did feel there was a work of the Spirit in me.” You do not believe in Christ at all. “Well,” says another, “I thought that I had a right to believe in Christ, because I felt somewhat.” You had not any right to believe in Christ at all on such a warranty as that. What is a man’s warrant then for believing in Christ?
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The ground of faith is not those impressions, but the Gospel itself. The object of faith is not Christ working on the heart and softening it, but rather Christ as He is presented to our acceptance in the Word.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Here was divine faith. It was not a question of feeling. Indeed, if Abraham had been influenced by his feelings, he would have been a doubter instead of a believer. For what had he to build upon in himself? “His own body now dead.” A poor ground surely on which to build his faith in the promise of an innumerable seed. But, we are told, “He considered not his own body now dead.” What, then, did he consider? He considered the Word of the living God, on that he rested. Now this is faith.
C. H. SPURGEON: [Some] Calvinistic ministers always garble Christ’s invitation thus: “If you are a sensible sinner you may come;” just as if stupid sinners might not come. They say, “If you feel your need of Christ, you may come;” and then they describe what that feeling of need is, and give such a high description of it that their hearers say, “Well, I never felt like that,” and they are afraid to venture for lack of the qualification.
JOHN BRADFORD (1510-1555): Faith must go before, and then feeling will follow.
C. H. SPURGEON: To tell the sinner that he is to believe on Christ because of some warrant in himself, is legal, I dare to say it—legal. Though this method is generally adopted by the higher school of Calvinists, they are herein unsound, uncalvinistic, and legal…If I believe in Jesus Christ because I feel a genuine repentance of sin, and therefore have a warrant for my faith, do you not perceive that the first and true ground of my confidence is the fact that I have repented of sin? If I believe in Jesus because I have convictions and a spirit of prayer, then evidently the first and the most important fact is not Christ, but my possession of repentance, conviction, and prayer, so that really my hope hinges upon my having repented; and if this be not legal I do not know what is.
WILLIAM FENNER (1560-1640): I dare to say it, that all this is not Scriptural. Sinners do feel these things before they come, but they do not come on the ground of having felt it; they come on the ground of being sinners, and on no other ground whatever.
C. H. SPURGEON: Put it lower. My opponents will say, “The sinner must have an awakened conscience before he is warranted to believe on Christ.” Well, then, if I trust Christ to save me because I have an awakened conscience, I say again, the most important part of the whole transaction is the alarm of my conscience, and my real trust hangs there. If I lean on Christ because I feel this and that, then I am leaning on my feelings and not on Christ alone, and this is legal indeed. Nay, even if desires after Christ are to be my warrant for believing, if I am to believe in Jesus not because He bids me, but because I feel some desires after Him, you will again with half an eye perceive that the most important source of my comfort must be my own desires. So that we shall be always looking within. “Do I really desire? If I do, then Christ can save me; if I do not, then He cannot.”
HUGH BINNING (1625-1654): He that is in earnest about this question, “How shall I be saved?” should not spend the time in reflecting on, and in an examination of himself, till he find something promising in himself, but, from discovered sin and misery, pass straightway over to the grace and mercy of Christ, without any intervening search of something in himself to warrant him to come.
JOHN BRADFORD: Though you feel not as you would, yet doubt not, but hope beyond all hope, as Abraham did; for always, faith goeth before feeling.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: “Ah! but,” the anxious reader may say, “what has all this to say to my case? I am not Abraham—I cannot expect a special revelation from God. How am I to know that God has spoken to me? How can I possess this precious faith?” Well, dear friend, mark the apostle’s further statement. “Now,” he adds, “it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if ” —if what?—if we feel, realize, or experience aught in ourselves? Nay, but “if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”
JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): To such as may fall to doubt and dispute what warrant they have to believe. We say you have as good warrant as Abraham, David, Paul, or any of the godly that lived before you had. You have the same gospel, covenant and promises; it was always God’s Word which was the ground of faith.
C. H. MACKINTOSH: All this is full of solid comfort and richest consolation. It assures the anxious inquirer that he has the selfsame ground and authority to rest upon that Abraham had, with an immensely higher measure of light thrown on that ground, inasmuch as Abraham was called to believe in a promise, whereas we are privileged to believe in an accomplished fact. He was called to look forward to something which was to be done; we look back at something that is done, even an accomplished redemption, attest by the fact of a risen and glorified Saviour, at the right hand of the Majesty in the Heavens. But as to the ground and authority of which we are called to rest our souls, it is the same in our case as in Abraham’s and all true believers in all ages—it is the Word of God—the holy Scriptures. There is no other foundation of faith but this; and the faith that rests on any other is not true faith at all.
C. H. SPURGEON: I do not believe in Christ because I have got good feelings, but I believe in Him whether I have good feelings or not―“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” 1 Timothy 1:15. Between that word “save” and the next word “sinners,” there is no adjective. It does not say “penitent sinners,” “awakened sinners,” “sensible sinners,” “grieving sinners,” or “alarmed sinners.” No, it only says “sinners.”
