(Heb. 11:17-22.)

We have presented to us in thi53 chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews the gathering up of the scriptural testimony as to the principle of faith, and its operation in the lives of God’s People from the very commencement of time. In the Jewish system all was material, and Appealed to the natural faculties of men, while faith, he shows, goes out to the unseen, which characterizes true Christianity. It is for the possessor of it, the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen."It makes real to the soul in which it operates the very things that are hoped for and not therefore possessed, while it is also that which also gives to that soul the conviction, the certainty, of the existence of these very things that are unseen, and yet for which we hope. God then if the whole sum and substance for faith, so much so that without it is impossible to please Him. He requires that one who comes to Him must believe that He is, and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. It is faith, and only faith, that can fulfil this requirement.

Moreover, faith, we know, is the gift of God. so that in its activity it must partake of His character, and always rises to its source and only sufficiency; that is, God Himself. We may therefore rightly expect to find some phase of God's own character in its activity, and of course especially so where it is acting in some distinct realization of God's all-sufficiency. It is this which we have presented in the passage before us. . The great men of Genesis are mentioned in connection with one distinct incident in their lives founded upon faith. First of all Abraham – typical above all others of the man of faith. In his case we have the offering up of Isaac. We cannot think of this and not have our thoughts turned to consider the pain and anguish of heart it must have meant for Abraham. It was for him the yielding up of the one in whom all his hope was centered, and yet how readily he gives up this object of his heart's deep affection. How beautiful a witness to the way faith counts on the all-sufficiency of God ! Abraham might have chided with God for laying such a burden upon him, and for taking away the one in whom his hope was centered. He might have questioned how the promises would be fulfilled, and what hope was left if now Isaac be removed. We say such reasoning would be the working of unbelief.

But do we not often reason this way in our hearts? It is far different with Abraham:not a word of murmuring, he promptly obeys the trying command. He "rose up early" the next morning, and goes the way he is bidden. Ah, was not He who had given Isaac when all hope was shattered, and there existed no longer any possible way of fulfilling the promise naturally, was He not able to raise up? to kill and to make alive ? Would He fail in such a way to fulfil the word of His promise ? Impossible. Let Isaac be taken ; His arm is not shortened, and His word cannot fail; He will provide.

Such is the language broad writ over the actions of faithful Abraham. Would that our own hearts spoke more on this wise, this whole-hearted yielding up to God's blessed will. Has He given us much blessing and given us the very thing our hearts longed for ? If then it be His will to take them from us shall unbelief raise its dragon head to chide with Him, the pledge of whose love is the gift of His only begotten Son f Rather shall our faith not speak in Abraham's language and say, "Thy will, not mine, blessed God." The object in such a trial is surely to turn our hearts to more simply and more completely trust in Him.

Perhaps Abraham had begun to rest a little in Isaac and the fulfilment of the promises in him, instead of continuing to look to God in the realization that even with the one given in whom all was to be fulfilled, still it must and could only be through God's own hand and power carrying all into effect. Whether he had reasoned so or not, we know not, but have we not often reasoned in this way ? God has given us the desire of our hearts and provided much in blessing us, and the heart grows lax, and coldness comes in, the eye is turned a little from our God, and we begin to find some sufficiency in what He has given-resting in that and the possession of it, instead of still continuing, after possessing the desires of the heart, to trust only in His all-sufficiency; enjoying the g|ft in the sense of this, and not in the least in any independence of Him who gave it. Very necessary, then, is the refining of our faith by the trial occasioned in the taking away of that in which we are finding any measure of sufficiency, even though given by God to us and of His will.

May God in His grace grant that we learn this lesson in His presence, for experience is not the best teacher in spiritual things, though we must mourn how often we choose this way of it.

But now in this activity of Abraham's faith we have a beautiful expression of one character of our God, as the Father in His love. We have not a more striking illustration in God's word than this is of the unspeakable gift of His love to us. It is pressed upon Abraham, "take thy son, thy only son Isaac," and so He, too, gave His only begotten Son, wrenching His heart of love and all its affections in giving up the well-beloved of His bosom to suffer for our sakes. The sorrow of the Father's heart in yielding Him up a willing sacrifice, who can tell it ? And if this be so, who can measure the depth of His infinite love for us, that He should give such a wonderful gift ? How sweet to know this One as our Father, and to be able to approach Him as such, to be known as His children, having been given the Spirit of adoption.

And then how beautifully expressive is Isaac's obedience to his father a type of the perfect obedience of the Son of God. No Voice of protest to mar the scene, but perfect self-surrender. The "Lo! I am come to do Thy will, O God," is heard here. And this is His declaration knowing full well what the accomplishment of it meant, even the awful forsaking of God upon the cross. The heart of the Father and of the Son are one in the divine, eternal expression of love to the creature, and it is this side of God's character that is expressed for us in this incident of Abraham's faith.

We pass on to Isaac, who blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. Here we have a far different thought as to God's character. Faith is clearly on Isaac's part in connection with the blessing given, and not with the way that it is given. Isaac would have given Jacob's blessing to Esau. Nevertheless, Isaac's faith is seen in recognizing Jacob truly blessed. He, no doubt, saw how God had accomplished His fore-announced purpose, spite of his fleshly desires to the contrary. Thus we read of him trembling exceedingly, no doubt with the thought before him of God's word spoken at the time of the birth-"the elder shall serve the younger," and how he had sought to do contrary to it. He therefore confirms the blessing to Jacob.

But what we see in all' this is clearly the fact that God is the God of election, and that, be the desires of the saint what they may, and seek to fulfil them in whatever way he may, His purpose cannot be changed and He will accomplish it. "The children being not yet born, neither having done good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger." (Rom. 9:ii, 12.) So that in the case of Isaac, we see the God of election controlling events for the accomplishment of His fore-announced purpose.

How blessed a character of God this is for us ! If it had not been that He had purposed, we could not be blessed; and if it had not been that He had marked us out before the foundation of the world
according to His fore-knowledge, we should not be the "blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And so "whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate . . . them He also called; " for if He had not called, and by His power (which always accompanies His voice when He calls) made us obedient to His will, we would have willingly gone on in the way of destruction. What sweet and blessed assurance then we have in this that He is the God of election, having all power to carry out His every purpose of blessing concerning us. We have the lesson of His matchless love for us in Abraham, and the assurance that love so wondrously manifested will provide for everything, giving every possible blessing; and now we learn that this same blessed One is He who has elected us in His unbounded grace to eternal blessing, to just all that blessing that the wonderful exhibition of His love has really pledged Him to give; for, having given His Son, "how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things" (Rom. 8:32).

In the third place we have Jacob and the blessing of the two sons of Joseph, accompanied with his worship, leaning upon the top of his staff. Here the contrast with Isaac is very marked. He shows how he has learnt his lesson, that that which is natural must be replaced by what is spiritual, the elder must give way to the younger. He crosses his hands in blessing Manasseh and Ephraim who receives the greater place. It must be so, Manasseh is typical for us of the forgetting of those things which are behind; this truly is absolutely necessary for Ephraimite fruitfulness to come in. All here, be what it may, must be turned from, and counted as dung, if the blessed fruit-bearing which pleases our God is to be developed in us.

But this is really a resurrection lesson. Why are we to turn from all earthly things to those which are above ? Is it not because we are dead with Christ, and are raised up with Him on resurrection ground? in new creation having no longer any link with the old order ? And this is God's way for us, and the accounting of His glorious counsels concerning us, so that in very deed He is the God of resurrection. All His ways exhibit Him in this character, that of bringing life out of death. The earth, as we know it, is a resurrected earth from the ruin it had fallen into; and now He is bringing a new creation out of the ruined old one, by the power of resurrection. The practical working out of which in the subjects of this resurrection work, is the lesson we learn from Jacob's faith in blessing the sons of Joseph. Here, then, we have Him as the God of resurrection, and it is a principle which characterizes His dealings as revealed all through Scripture.

To know Him in this character is the pledge to our faith of the fulfilment of His every promise and our every hope in connection therewith. He "hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His own power." That resurrection power that raised up Christ will also raise us up; yea, is the pledge of it, for we are now linked with Christ for eternity. It is in the raising up of Christ that God is supremely manifested as the God of resurrection, and in which we know Him as such. It is the security of everything for us since we are before God in Christ as our Representative; and He has been raised up from that place into which He has descended for us, bearing our judgment as our Substitute.

When the lesson of all this has been learnt in the soul, the consequence of it is worship from a heart filled with the riches of God's grace, and to which things present are but dung, and their loss counted gain.

Finally, in Joseph making mention of the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt and giving commandment concerning his bones, we have the comforting promise of God's sure visitation given to his brethren, from the midst of whom God is about to remove him. His faith here certifies to the fulfilment of the promise to bring them into the land which they were to be given. We cannot help but consider the fiery furnace of affliction through which Israel was to pass during their sojourn in Egypt, after which we know Jehovah visited them. How to those poor slaves, oppressed under the tyrannical sway of Pharaoh's power, all hope or prospect of the fulfilling of God's promise to their fathers must have seemed to be gone. And how, too, perhaps they counted Him unfaithful to His promise. Nevertheless, how sweet in view of these circumstances God's message for faith to lay hold of in the word spoken by Joseph! What a comfort from God Himself to any among Israel who trusted in Him. And so we know how after all the sorrow, degradation and trial which they passed through, God answered the faith of Joseph and proved Himself faithful to His promise to the fathers, accomplishing deliverance.

Here, unmistakably, we have Him presented to us as the unchanging God. Let there intervene a time, no matter how long, no matter how much filled with trial and sorrow, with an outlet only dark, through which light would seem never to break, we may be sure He will never change, and that which He has spoken He will carry out and nothing can swerve Him. How blessed to know Him as such in a path like this through a hostile world, that is, of course, if it really is a hostile world to us, and that depends much on our communion and testimony. We know this glorious One also as our Father, who has called us to communion and fellowship with Himself; to abide under the covert of His wings where harm cannot come nigh.

"We change, He changes not."

These are sweet lessons He has given us of His own character in the lives of these examples of faith. And may He in His rich grace grant us to learn them in simple faith, that we may indeed find our whole portion in Himself, in whom is a wealth of all-sufficiency for us which is infinite and divine. Let us never forget that it is the fruit of the suffering and death of our blessed Lord; and while the glorious blessing we have been brought into is the necessary result of that awful Cross, (for God will honor and magnify in this way the name of Christ who has glorified Him in connection with sin, by the bestowal of all His infinite wealth upon poor creatures whose place He took in love and atoned for their sin) yet let us remember the pit from whence we have been dug, the awful depth to which the Son of God had to descend that He might lift us up into God's glory, and to apprehend even now, in some measure, His blessed character. J. B. Jr.