The New Testament tells us of Jesus that He was full of Grace and Truth. Grace and Truth ! It must have been in the perfect meeting of those two elements in Him that His mediator- ship, His power to transmute the everlasting truths of God into the immediate help of needy men consisted. He was no rapt self- centred student of the abstract truth ; nor was He the merely ready sentimental pitier of the woes of men. But in His whole nature there was finely wrought and combined the union of the abstract and eternal with the special and the personal, which made it possible for Him, without an effort, to come down from the mountain where He had been glorified with the light of God,
MICAH vi. 8 373
and take up instantly the cure of the poor lunatic in the valley ; or to descend from the hill where He had been praying, to save His disciples half-shipwrecked on the lake ; or to turn His back on the comforting angels of Gethsemane, that He might give Himself into the hands of the soldiers who were to lead Him to the cross.1
1 Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons, 8.
Life by Faith.
373
Literature.
Gregg (J.), Sermons Preached in Trinity Churchy Dublin, ii. 18. Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year : Miscellaneous, 42C-. Kingsley (C), Village, Town, and Country Sermons, 34.
„ „ The Water of Life, 143.
Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., v. 505. Martin (S.), Fifty Sermons, 373.
Maurice (F. D.), The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, 370. Montefiore (C. G.), Truth in Religion, 247. Plumptre (E. H.), Theology and Life, 393. Sadler (M. F.), Sermon Outlines, 296. Singer (S.), Sermons and Memoir, 279. Sowter (G. A.), Trial and Triumph, 24. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxix. (1883), No. 1749 ;
xlviii. (1902), No. 2809. Vaughan (J.), Sermons Preached in Christ Churchy Brighton, ii. 148. Watkinson (W. L.), The Ashes of Roses, 219. Biblical World, xxxv. (1910) 39 (I. M. Price). Christian World Pulpit, xliii. 225 (F. W. Farrar). Church of England Pulpit, xlvi. 63 (C. Gore). Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., vii. 38 (A. G. Thiselton). National Preacher, xxxvi. 353 (A. T. M'Gill). Penuel, i. 10 (E. G. Fishbourne). Treasury (New York), viii. 670 (W. E. Barton).
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Life by Faith.
The just shall live by his faith.— Hab. ii. 4.
There is no single text in the Old Testament that plays a larger role in the doctrinal discussions of the New Testament than this little sentence from the prophecy of the prophet Habakkuk. It is also one of the foundation stones on which Martin Luther built his anti-papal doctrines of the Reformation, and changed the course of Church History.
■[[ Six hundred and thirteen affirmative and negative precepts, says the Talmud, are in the Law given to Moses on Sinai. Since the giving of that Law many a compendium of these hundreds has been suggested. The Psalmist compressed them into eleven. These are to be found in Psalm xv. "Who shall abide in thy tabernacle. He who walketh uprightly and worketh righteous- ness, and speaketh truth in his heart," and so forth. Isaiah con- tracted them into six ; Micah into three, " What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." The second Isaiah into two, " Observe justice and do charity." But then came Habakkuk and compre- hended them all in that one phrase — " The just man shall live by his faith " (Maccoth 23).1
To do justice to this great text we must consider it first in its historical setting, and then in the application of it in the New Testament.
I
The Original Meaning of the Words.
1. This text was written on the eve of a Chaldsean invasion. The heathen were coming into Judsea, as we see them still in the Assyrian sculptures — civilizing, after their barbarous fashion, the
1 S. Singer, Sermons and Memoir, 279. 377
378 LIFE BY FAITH
nations round them — conquering, massacring, transporting whole populations, building cities and temples by their forced labour; and resistance or escape was impossible. The prophet is perplexed. What is this but a triumph of evil ? Is there a Divine Provi- dence ? Is there a just Euler of the world ? And he breaks out into pathetic expostulation with God Himself : " Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he ? And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them ? They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in the net, and gather them in their drag : therefore they rejoice and are glad. There- fore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations ? "
Thus Habakkuk had to face the problem of the strength of the wicked and the humiliation of the just. It had been the problem with which Job had wrestled, and the Psalmist and Ecclesiastes ; but now it thrust itself into notice under serious and startling aggravations. These arose from the struggles of suffering innocence, but hitherto they had presented themselves mainly in individual instances. The miseries of the individual might be explained away as a result of the infinite complications of human life ; but when the sufferer was not a man, but a nation, the chosen people, the seed of Abraham, God's servants, the only nation which did not worship carved images or deal in heathen gods, it was natural that terrible misgiving should overcloud the souls of men. Belief in the protection of Jehovah had been the main element in the religious conviction of the Jew. Was it not shattered to the dust ? The cry of the prophet went up in his perplexity with the question, so often asked before and since, " 0 Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear ? " " Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look upon iniquity; wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacher- ously ? "