'... Them that have obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.'--2 Peter
i. 1.
Peter seems to have had a liking for that word 'precious.' It is not a
very descriptive one; it does not give much light as to the quality of
the things to which it is applied; but it is a suggestion of one-idea
value. It is interesting to notice the objects to which, in his two
letters--for I take this to be his letter--he applies it. He speaks of
the trial of faith as being 'precious.' He speaks (with a slight
modification of the word employed) of Jesus Christ as being 'to them
that believe, precious.' He speaks of the 'precious' blood of Christ.
These instances are in the first epistle. In this second epistle we have
the words of my text, and a moment after, 'exceeding great and precious
promises.' Now look at Peter's list of valuables; 'Christ, Christ's
blood, God's promises, our Faith, and the discipline to which that faith
is subjected.' These are things that the old man had found out to be of
worth.
But then there is another word in my text that must be noted, 'like
precious.' It brings into view two classes, to one of which Peter
himself belongs--'us' and 'they.' Who are these two classes? It may be
that he is thinking of the immense difference between the intelligent
and developed faith of himself and the other Apostles, and the
rudimentary and infantile faith of the recent believers to whom he may
be speaking. And, if so, that would be beautiful, but I rather take it
that he is tacitly contrasting in his own mind the difference between
the Gentile converts as a whole, and the members of the Jewish community
who had become believers in Jesus Christ, and that he is repeating the
lesson that he had learned on the housetop at Joppa, and had had further
confirmed to him by the experience of Cæsarea, and that he is really
saying exactly what he said when he defended himself before the Council
in Jerusalem: 'Seeing that God had given unto them the like gift that he
did unto us, who was I, that I should withstand God?' And so he looks
out over all the Christian community, and ignores 'the middle wall of
partition,' and says, 'Them that have obtained like precious faith with
us.' I wish very simply to try to draw out the thoughts that lie in
these words, and cluster round that well-worn and threadbare theological
expression and Christian verity of 'faith' or 'trust.'
I. And the first thing that I would desire to point you to is, what we
learn here as to the object of faith.
Now those of you who are using the Revised Version will notice that
there is a very slight, but important, alteration there, from the
rendering in the old translation. We read in the latter: 'Like precious
faith with us _through_ the righteousness, ...' and that is a meaning
that might be defended. But the Revised Version says, and says more
accurately as far as the words go, and more truly as far as Christian
thought goes, 'them that have obtained like precious faith with us _in_
the righteousness.' Now, I daresay, it will occur to us all that that is
a departure from the usual form in which faith is presented to us in the
New Testament, because there, thank God! we are clearly taught that the
one thing which faith grapples is not a thing but a Person. Christian
faith is only human trust turned in a definite direction. Just as our
trust lays hold on one another, so the object of faith is, in the
deepest analysis, no doctrine, no proposition, not even a Divine fact,
not even a Divine promise, but the Doer of the fact, and the Promiser of
the promise, and the Person, Jesus Christ. When you say, 'I trust
so-and-so's word!' what you mean is, 'I trust _him_, and so I put
credence in his word.' And Christianity would have been delivered from
mountains of misconception, and many a poor soul would have felt that a
blaze of light had come in upon it, if this had been clearly proclaimed,
and firmly apprehended by preachers and by hearers, that the object of
trust is the living Person, Jesus Christ, and that the trust which
grapples us to Him is essentially a personal relation entered into by
our wills and hearts far more than by our heads.
All that is being apprehended by the Christian Church to-day a great
deal more clearly than it used to be when some of us were young. But we
have the defects of our qualities. And this generation is accustomed far
too lightly and superficially to say 'Oh! I do not care about doctrines.
I cleave to the living Christ!' Amen! say I. But there is another
question--What Christ is it that you are cleaving to? For our only way
of knowing a person with whom we have no external acquaintance is by
what we are told about him, and believe about him. And so, while we
cannot assert too strongly that faith or trust in the living Christ, and
not in a dogma, is the basis of real Christian life, we have need to be
very definite and sure as to what Christ--which Christ--it is that we
are trusting to? And there my text comes in, and tells us that faith is
to grasp Christ as our righteousness; and another saying of the Apostle
Paul's comes in, who for once speaks of faith as being faith not only in
the Christ, but in 'His blood':--
'Jesus! Thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress.'
Brethren! you will not get beyond that. The Christ, trusting in whom we
have life and salvation, is the Christ whose blood cleanses, whose
righteousness clothes us poor, sinful men. So, while proclaiming with
all emphasis, and rejoicing to press it upon all my brethren, that
salvation comes by personal trust in the Person, I supplement and fill
out, not contradict, that proclamation, when I further say that the
Person by trusting in whom we are saved, is the Jesus whose blood
cleanses and whose righteousness becomes ours. That righteousness is, in
our text, contemplated as God's, as being embodied in Christ's, that
from Him it may be imparted to us, if we will fulfil the condition on
which alone it can be ours, viz., faith. It becomes ours, by no mere
imputation which has not a reality at the back of it, but because faith
brings us into such a vital union with Jesus Christ as that His
righteousness, or at least a spark from the central flame, becomes ours,
not only in reference to our exemption from the burden of our guilt, but
in reference to our becoming conformed to the image of His dear Son, and
created anew in righteousness and holiness. The object of faith is
Christ, the Christ whose blood and righteousness cleanses and clothes
sinful souls.
II. Let me ask you to look, in the next place, to what this text
suggests to us about the worth of Christian faith.
Peter calls it precious. Consider its worth as a channel. There is a
very remarkable expression used in the Acts of the Apostles, 'The door
of faith.' A door is of little value in itself, worth a few shillings at
the most, but if it opens the way into a palace then it is worth
something. And all the preciousness that there is in faith comes, not
from its intrinsic value, but from the really precious things which it
gives into our hands. Just as the dyer's hand may be tinged with royal
purple, if he has been working in it, or a woman's hand may be scented
and made fragrant if she has been handling perfumes, so the hand of
faith takes tint and fragrance from that with which it is conversant. It
is precious because it is the channel by which all precious things flow
into our hearts and lives. If Ladysmith is, as I suppose it is,
dependent for its water supply on one lead pipe, the preciousness of
that pipe is not measured by what it would fetch if it were put up to
auction for its lead, but by that which flows through it, and without
which Death would come. And my faith is the pipe by which all the water
of life comes sparkling and rejoicing into my thirsty soul. It is the
opening of the door 'that the King of Glory may come in'; it is the
taking down of the shutters that the sunshine may blaze into the
darkened chamber; it is the grasping of the electric wire that the
circuit may be completed. God puts out His hand, and we lay hold of it.
It is not the outstretched hand from earth, but the down-stretched hand
from heaven that makes the tottering man stand. So, dear friends, let us
understand that salvation does not come as the reward of faith, but that
the salvation is _in_ the faith, because faith is the channel by which
all God's salvation pours into us. So there is nothing arbitrary in the
way of salvation, as some shallow thinkers seem to propose, and there is
no reason in the question, 'Why does God make salvation depend upon
faith?' God could not but make salvation depend upon faith, because
there is no other possible way by which the blessings which are gathered
together into that one great pregnant word 'salvation' could find their
way into a man's heart but through the channel of his trust. Have you
opened that channel? If you have not, you need not wonder it cannot be
otherwise--that salvation does not come unto you.
Consider its worth as a defence. The Apostle in one place speaks about
'the shield of faith.' But there is nothing in the belief that I am safe
to make me safe. It is very often a fatal blunder. All depends upon that
or Him, to which or whom I am trusting for my safety. Put yourself
beneath the true Shield--'The Lord God is a sun and shield'--and then
you will be safe. Your way of running into the strong tower which alone,
with its massive walls, protects us from all danger and from all sin, is
by trusting Him.
Just as light things on a ship's deck have to be lashed in order to be
secured and lie still, you and I have to lash ourselves to Jesus Christ;
then, not by reason of the lashings, but by reason of Him, we are
fastened and secured.
Consider the worth of faith as a means of purifying. This very Apostle,
in his great speech in Jerusalem, when vindicating the reception of the
Gentiles into the Church, spoke of God as having 'purified their hearts
by faith.' And here again, I say, there is no cleansing power in the
act of trust. Cleansing power is in that which, by the act of trust,
comes into my heart. Faith is not simple receptivity, not mere passive
absorbing of what is given, but it is the active taking by desire as
well as by confidence. And when we trust in Jesus Christ, His blood and
righteousness, there flows into our hearts that Divine life which, like
a river turned into a dung-heap, will sweep all the filth before it. You
have to get the purifying power by faith. Ay! and you have to utilise
the purifying power by effort and by work. 'What God hath joined
together, let not men put asunder.'