Thomas Manton · 52 of 57

The Eleventh Verse. · Part 7

Use 3. It serveth for instruction to us, to make Jesus Christ, as he is Mediator, God-man, the object of our faith.. We may do it, and we ought to do it. Whosoever justifieth me becomes the object of my faith. Now not only God the Father justifieth, but also Jesus Christ, God’s righteous servant. And therefore, in; the work of our faith, we are not only to reflect upon God the Father, but Jesus Christ as Media tor. And indeed we ought to do so, for much of the comfort of believing dependeth upon our taking of him into our thoughts: John xiv. 1, ‘Let not your hearts be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me.’ It easeth us much of the trouble of our hearts when our souls have recourse to Christ, when we believe in him. who was God’s righteous servant.

I shall here handle two questions, and so despatch this use:—

First, What it is to believe in Christ as God’s righteous servant? It is not only to believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; not only to have distinct and explicit thoughts of the Trinity; but to believe in Christ as Mediator. You have a willing God, and you have an able Saviour. It is to reflect upon the whole carriage of Christ’s mediatorship, as a sufficient help for poor creatures; there is enough in God’s righteous servant to become a sufficient bottom and ground for our faith. Though faith is not to rest in Christ, it is to begin in him, that by him we may the more comfortably believe in God. And this is the reason why many times there is no other object of faith expressed but Jesus Christ: John i. 12, ‘To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.’

Second question, What special comfort and privilege doth there come to faith by it?

1. By this you have a double claim. An interest in God by virtue of the covenant of grace made with your persons, and the covenant of works made with Jesus Christ. It is due to you as it is all of grace, but to Jesus Christ it was a due debt; he satisfied justice and merited mercy: Rom. iii. 24, ‘Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ;’ that is Christ’s claim, and your claim by virtue of your interest in him. So the 26th verse, ‘That he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.’ When you reflect upon Jesus Christ, your claim is not disannulled, but strengthened by the justice of God. Christ hath satisfied justice and merited mercy; Christ hath satisfied the covenant of works by suffering what was due in point of transgression, and by discharging what was due in point of obedience. You see satisfaction as well as imputation.

2. It ministereth matter of glory and triumph of faith, considering every scruple. You have not only a proof of the Father’s love, but the Son’s merit: Rom. viii. 34, ‘Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died.’ And therefore faith speaketh of glorying in the cross of Christ, Gal. vi. 14. There is matter of glorying in the cross of Christ, in his obedience and death, that there is so full satisfaction and such exact obedience. Oh, plead it to your souls; he fulfilled every tittle. Alas! we have but little cause to boast; we know but in part, and do but in part; but in Christ we may glory; nay, you may glory in God the Father: 1 Cor. i. 31, ‘That according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.’ Why? because Christ is made all to us by the Father—wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: an object fully satisfying, so that now you may make your boast of God all the day long.

3. It ministereth joy, in that you see God in your own nature, and he is your kinsman. Affinity begets obedience and hopes of speeding. Your hearts would tremble and quiver at the sight of God’s back parts in his own glorious nature; and therefore, because you cannot converse with God in his own nature, there is Christ to help to relieve you; in believing God in your own nature, that is an object of our faith. Hence it is said, Eph. iii. 12, ‘We have access with boldness through the faith of him;’ and Heb. x. 19, 20, ‘Having therefore boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.’ The manhood of Christ is the means to bring God and us together; otherwise, there was a flaming sword against us every way, and we could not come near but we must die. The mere God head was incensed against us; and therefore, till God became man, there was no hope left unto us to see him; but when he became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, it was matter of great encouragement to the creature. There are other considerations, but these are enough to persuade you in believing, not only to look upon God, but to look upon Christ, to look upon God’s righteous servant; not only upon the mercy or grace of God, but upon the mercy and grace engaged to you by the sufferings and obedience of Jesus Christ. Thus you see you have a double claim to God, and you have an excellent remedy against the doubts of your own hearts; you may see God in your own natures. The Lord grant you may have a right sight of these things, not that you may abuse them to looseness, and to the cherishing of presumption, and so turn Aaron’s rod into a serpent, but that you may be helped in the great work of believing.

I go on in the text to the next circumstance, and that is the object or subject of justification, that is many. He shall ‘justify many.’

1. It is put here exclusively, to shut out the universality of man kind; it is but many that he justifieth, it is not all.

2. It is put inclusively, to take in the whole company of the faithful. Look upon those that are called of Christ in all ages, and they will come to such a number.

I shall handle the first acceptation, as it excludeth the greater part of the world.

Observe, then, that all are not justified by Christ. The privilege that God bestowed upon Christ was, that he should justify many.

The reasons of the point are:—

1. Because of his sovereign pleasure, to pass by some for their sins, and for the glory of his justice, and not to bestow upon them the grace of election; he may do with his own as it pleaseth him. And indeed, usually in this matter, the scriptures make God’s pleasure to be all in all. There are some whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Some translations read it, ‘Whose names are not written before the foundation of the world in the Lamb’s book of life.’ God never gave Christ a charge to save such men whose names are not in the Lamb’s book. God dealeth out of absolute sovereignty: Prov. xvi. 4, ‘God hath made all things for himself, and the wicked for the day of evil.’ You would overlook that, but it is for the glorifying of his justice. It is observable, he doth not say he made the elect for the day of evil. There are many who grant that the wicked are for the day of evil, who do not grant eternal reprobation and preterition; these cavil at God’s prerogative: Rom. ix. 18, ‘Whom he will he hardeneth;’ i.e., with draws the influences of his grace from them. They are hardened as water is freezed by the absence of the sun. The preterition of God is not the cause of sin, but the antecedent: 2 Tim. ii. 20, ‘In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.’ And Jude 4, speaks of ‘some who were of old ordained to this condemnation, before the world was.’

2. Because all do not believe. It is a visible argument that all are not justified, because all do not apply themselves to Christ for justification. The righteousness of Christ will bear this limitation, none have a share in it but believers: Rom. iii. 22, ‘Even the righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all that believe, for there is no difference.’ All they, and none but they. Now, all are not believers: ‘All have not faith,’ 2 Thes. ii. 12, 13; Mat. xx. 16, ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.’ The preaching of the gospel doth not work upon all; they have the outward means, but not the inward grace. Scarce all have the outward means.

Use 1. This checketh that wild charity that was in Origen, who thought that all should be saved at last, even the devils themselves. And this opinion was revived in Germany by a man of an obscure name, and by some in our days. Now, consider that the general drift of the scriptures saith, ‘Depart from me, I know you not,’ Mat. vii. 23. That there are goats as well as sheep; some to whom Christ will say, ‘Go ye cursed.’ Mat. xxv. 41. Some that are without: Rev. xxii. 15, ‘Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.’ The main places whereupon they build their conceit are these: Rom. v. 18, ‘Wherefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came unto all men to justification of life;’ where Christ and Adam are compared together, and the one’s sin and the other’s sufferings are made equivalent: 1 Cor. xv. 22, ‘As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.’ But in these places Christ and Adam are compared as two common roots, and the one should be as able to save, as the other to ruin those that belong to him. The other place is 1 Cor. xv. 28, ‘That God may be all in all,’ which they understand of God’s presence and glory in all. But the apostle speaketh there only of those holy ones who shall have a glorious manifestation of the presence of God, so that God will be all in all to them. But I shall no longer rake in this dirt.

Use 2. Is to teach you:—

1. Not to be contented with those common privileges which all men may enjoy, for you may have all these and not be saved. All men are not justified, and therefore not saved. As in creation, because God bestowed a human form upon you, therefore you think he will save you; but God doth not save all those he hath made: Isa. xxvii. 11, ‘It is a people of no understanding; and therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will show them no favour.’ It is ill trusting to that. Men will say, I hope to be saved as well as others, and the like. The covenant of works was made with all men, as being in Adam’s loins; but not that of grace, that is made to those that are given to Christ. Hath he given you a mind to know him? Heb. viii. 10, and a heart to receive him? John i. 12; then it is well. It is no privilege to be an intellectual creature, only to be wiser than the beasts to our own destruction. So for an estate; surely God loveth and favoureth me, because he blesseth me with worldly good things: Eccles. ix. 1, 2, ‘No man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before them. All things come alike to all, and there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked.’ This all men may have, but you must have some privilege that is distinct. So for good meanings; they thank God they have a good heart towards him, and ever had, and that they know they have done their best; as the young man said, Mat. xix. 20, ‘All these have I kept from my youth.’ I tell you, whatever you have by nature, every man may have; and therefore, till you have faith and other graces, it is as nothing.

2. It teacheth you not to flatter yourselves with the universality of grace and mercy. Many live and die, and rot in their sins, and think Christ will save them, and mercy will save them. You see Christ will not save all, and God gave him no commission to justify all: Deut. xxix. 19, 20, ‘When he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst: the Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man.’ Mark, it is said, against that man. God hath a special quarrel at him that abuseth mercy: there will a time come when they shall see his justice; as the thief said on the cross, Luke xxiii. 41, ‘And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds.’

Use 3. Is to the people of God, that have had any sense of their justification by Christ—any inclination to walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh: Rom. viii. 1, ‘There is no condemnation to them.’ Man is most taken with anything that is appropriate; it is a privilege that is mine,—it is not given to others. This exhorteth you to the greater sense of this privilege; it is not every one’s mercy. The apostle showeth this is one of God’s reasons in passing by the reprobate world: Rom. ix. 23, ‘That he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.’ Your mercies are mightily aggravated by their want. Respects are not favours when they are bestowed promiscuously. Oh, consider this is the mercy of God’s own people: Ps. cxix. 132, ‘Look upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do to those that love thy name.’ Alas! what should engage God to you above others? Oh, consider and admire the goodness of God, that hath passed by millions, and yet manifested himself to thee, in whom there was no desert! This was an endearment to the Israelites: Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20, ‘He hath showed his word to Jacob, his statutes and his judgments to Israel; he hath not dealt so with any nation;’ Deut. vii. 7, 8, ‘The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you because ye were more in number than any people, but because the Lord loved you.’