Ask another. What do you mean to live so loosely and carelessly ? Why will you stand thus ? Will you be content to die so ? Perhaps he doth not know sound doctrine, or if he do, it is confusedly ; he doth not build on that rock, on that foundation.
Oh ! let us labour to build stronger and stronger on the truth. Our building strongly makes us eternal. God's truth is eternal truth, because it makes us eternal. Is it not a strange thing that man, that is chaff, and vanity, and smoke, whose life passeth as a tale that is told, that yet not- withstanding if he build on this yea, which is certain and infallible, the
882 COMMENTARY ON
rloctrino of the gospel, it will make him a rock, a living; stone, it will mako him etornal '? * All flesh is f^rass, hut the word of God endures for ever,' 1 Pet. i. 25.
What a comfort is this, our life heing a vapour, and vanity, and growing to nothing, that the time will shortly como when we shall be no more, no more in this world ; then to have divine truth that will make us eternal ! Ps. xc. Moses, a good man, he saw men drop away. Saith he, ' Thou art our eternal habitation from generation to generation,' What is the meaning of that ? That is, we dwell in thee. Here in our pilgrimage to Canaan we drop away, but ' thou art our habitation from generation to generation.' So when a Christian considers his life is uncertain, all things are vanity that support this life, yet notwithstanding I have a ' yea' to build on, the divine truth. ' The word of the Lord endures for ever,' and it will make me endure for ever. It is a rock itself, it makes mo a rock ; it will make me a living stone, built on that foundation, that all the gates of hell shall not prevail against my faith and hope.
What a comfort is this ! We have nothing without this * yea.' We are ' yea and nay,' and our happiness is ' yea and nay.' We are so happy now, as we may be miserable to-morrow. Let us labour to build on divine truth, which is like itself, that in all the changes of the world we may have somewhat that is unalterable, that is as unchangeable as God himself. As St Paul here brings God himself, ' as God is true, my word to you was not yea and nay, but yea.' So much shall suffice for that verse. I go on to the 20th verse.
VEESE 20.
' For all the •promises of God in Jam are yea, and in him amen.' This comes in after this manner. My preaching to you, saith he, was invariable and constant, because Christ himself is alway 'yea.' If Christ, the matter of my preaching, be always 'yea,' and I preach nothing but Christ, then my preaching is invariable and constant. How doth he prove the minor ? How doth he prove that Christ is alway ' yea ? ' * All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen.' Christ is invariable, and my preaching of him was not 'yea and nay.' Christ is not 'yea and nay,' because 'all the promises of God in him are yea and amen.'
* The promises of God in him are yea,' that is, they are constant; ' and in him they are amen.' Thei'e is some diversity in reading the words (vvv). But most constantly the best expositors have it as this translation hath it, ' all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen.' The literal meaning is this, ' all the promises of God in Christ are yea,' that is, they are certain, they are made in him ; ' and in him they are amen,' that is, they are accomplished in him. In him they are made, and in him they are accomplished.
I might spend a great deal of time to shew the acception * of the word * amen,' but it is not pertinent to my pui-pose.
' Amen ' is here certain, undoubtedly certain, as it is here to make way to that which is to be understood.
There are three main senses of ' amen.' It signifies that a thing is posi- tively so, and not no, it is so. ' Yea and amen ' signify that such a thing is ; as, ' let your yea be yea,' Mat. v. 37, such a thing is. But now ' amen ' * That is, 'acceptation.' — G.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 20. 383
is more, not only that a thing is, but it is so truly, and so unchangeably ; it is ' yea and amen.' The promises are ' yea,' they arc made in Christ ; and then they are true in him, undoubtedly, eternally, unchangeably true.
So take it in the strictest, in the strongest, sense you can ; all the pro- mises of God in Christ they are so true, that they are invariably, constantly, eternally true in him, they are made in him, and performed in him ; ' they are yea in him, and amen in him.' So the whole carriage of the promises is only in Christ.