Sunday, March 25, 2007
F.F. Bruce on faith
"In Old Testament times, he points out, there were many men and women who had nothing but the promises of God to rest upon, without any visible evidence that these promises would ever be fulfilled; yet so much did these promises mean to them they regulated the whole course of their lives in thier light. The promises related to a state of affairs belonging to the future; but these people acted as if that state of affairs were already present, so convinced were they that God could and would fulfill what he had promised. In other words, they were men and women of faith. Their faith consisted simply in taking God at His word and directing their lives accordingly; things yet future as far as their experience went were thus present to faith and things outwardly unseen were visible to the inward eye, It is in these terms that our author now describes the faith which he has been speaking."
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2 comments:
This is delightful, and a great quote. He's commenting on Hebrews? 11? There are two glorious things in this truth:
1) theologically - the people of God were saved by faith in a savior, of whom they knew little (though some) but relied on God to provide. The Mosaic covenant brought the law and the promise of something to come. The law damns, the promise quickens.
2) practically - these dear saints saw that the promises of God will come to swallow up the providence of God that they were currently seeing. They relied on promises as truth, and in so doing, they saw things as they truly were, not merely as they seemed.
also a good quote.
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