John Owen · 30 of 73

Chapter VI. Particular promises illustrated. · Part 1

Having cleared the truth of the one and meaning of the other proposition mentioned in the argument last proposed, I proceed to confirm the latter by an induction of particular promises. The first that I shall fix upon is that of Josh. i. 5, “I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” This promise, it is true, in this original copy of it, is a grant to one single person entering upon a peculiar employment; but the Holy Ghost hath eminently taught the saints of God to plead and improve it in all generations for their own advantage, and that not only upon the account of the general rule of the establishment of all promises in Jesus Christ to the glory of God by us, but also by the application which himself makes of it unto them, and all their occasions wherein they stand in need of the faithfulness of God therein: Heb. xiii. 5, “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” The apostle layeth down an exhortation in the beginning of the verse against the inordinate desire of the things of the world, that are laboured after upon the account of this present life. To give power and efficacy to his exhortation, he manifesteth all such desires to be altogether needless, upon consideration of His all-sufficiency who hath promised never to forsake them; which he manifests by an instance in this promise given to Joshua, giving us withal a rule for the application of all the promises of the Old Testament which were made to the church and people of God. Some labour much to rob believers of the consolation intended for them in the evangelical promises of the Old Testament, though made in general to the church, upon this account, that they were made to the Jews, and being to them peculiar, their concernment now lieth not in them. If this plea might be admitted, I know not any one promise that would more evidently fall under the power of it than this we have now in consideration. It was made to a peculiar person, and that upon a peculiar occasion, — made to a general or captain of armies, with respect to the great wars he had to undertake upon the special command of God. May not a poor, hungry believer say, “What is this to me? I am not a general of an army, have no wars to make upon God’s command. The virtue, doubtless, of this promise expired with the conquest of Canaan, and died with him to whom it was made.” To manifest the sameness of love that is in all the promises, with their establishment in one Mediator, and the general concernment of believers in every one of them, however and on what occasion soever given to any, this promise to Joshua is here applied to the condition of the weakest, meanest, and poorest of the saints of God, to all and every one of them, be their state and condition what it will. And, doubtless, believers are not a little wanting to themselves and their own consolation that they do not more particularly close with those words of truth, grace, and faithfulness, which, upon sundry occasions and at divers times, have been given out unto the saints of old, even Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and the residue of them who walked with God in their generations. These things in an especial manner are recorded for our consolation, “that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope,” Rom. xv. 4. Now, the Holy Ghost, knowing the weakness of our faith, and how apt we are to be beaten from closing with the promises, and from mixing them with faith, upon the least discouragement that may arise (as, indeed, this is none of the least, “That the promise is not made to us, it was made to others, and they may reap the sweetness of it; God may be faithful in it though we never enjoy the mercy intended by it;” I say), in the next words he leads believers by the hand to make the same conclusion with boldness and confidence, from this and the like promises, as David did of old, upon the many gracious assurances that he had received of the presence of God with him: Heb. xiii. 6, “So that,” saith he (upon the account of that promise), “we may say boldly” (without staggering at it by unbelief), “The Lord is my helper.” This is a conclusion of faith: “Because God said to Joshua, a believer, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee’ (though upon a particular occasion, and in reference to a particular employment), every believer may say with boldness, ‘He is my helper.’ ”

It is true, the application of the promises here looks immediately unto temporals, but yet, being drawn out from the testimony of the continuance of the presence of God with his saints, doth much more powerfully conclude to spirituals; yea, the promise itself is of spiritual favour, and what concerns temporals is only from thence extracted. Let us, then, weigh a little the importance of this promise, which the apostle hath rescued from suffering under any private interpretation, and set at liberty to the use of all believers. To every one of them, then, God saith, directly and plainly, that he will “never leave them nor forsake them.” If there should any question arise whether he should be taken at his word or no, it must be the devil that must be entertained as an advocate against him. Unbelief, indeed, hath many pleas, and will have, in the breasts of saints, against closing with the faithfulness of God in this promise, and the issue of confidence in him which from a due closing with it would certainly flow. But shall our unbelief make the truth of God of none effect? He hath told us that “he will never leave us, nor forsake us.” The old serpent, and some arguing from him herein, are ready to say, “Yea, ‘hath God indeed said so?’ The truth of it shall not indeed be surely so. It may be otherwise; for God doth know that many cases may fall out, that you may be utterly rejected by him, and cast out of his presence. You may have such oppositions rise against you in your walking with him as shall certainly overcome you and set you at enmity with him, or you may fully depart from him.” And many such like pleadings will Satan furnish the unbelief of believers withal. If they are not sufficiently taught by experience what it is to give credit to Satan endeavouring to impair and call in question, upon any pretence whatever, the faithfulness of God and his truth, when will they learn it? Surely they have little need to join with their adversaries for the weakening of their supportments or the impairing of their consolations. Whereas there is an endeavour to make men believe that the denying any absolutely unchangeable promise of God unto believers makes much for their comfort and refreshment, it shall afterward be considered in common, in reference also to those other demonstrations of the saints’ perseverance that shall, God willing, be produced.

It will be excepted, that “God will not forsake them whilst they are believers; but if they forsake him and fall from him, he is at liberty to renounce them also.” But that God’s not-forsaking of any is no more but a mere non-rejection of them shall afterward be disproved. Whom he doth not forsake as a God in covenant, to them doth he continue his presence, and towards them he exerciseth his power and all-sufficiency for their good. And if he can [not] by his Spirit and the power of his grace keep them whom he doth not forsake in a state and condition of not-forsaking him, he doth forsake them before they forsake him, yea, before he is said to forsake them. God’s not-forsaking believers is effectually preventive of that state and condition in them on the account whereof it is asserted that he may forsake them.

1 Sam. xii. 22, the truth we have under consideration is confirmed by the prophet in the name and authority of God himself; and the words wherein it is done have the force of a promise, being declarative of the good-will of God unto his people in Christ: “For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake; because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people.”

The expression is the same with that which the Lord gives his people of his good-will in the covenant of grace; of which I have spoken before. Many may be their calamities and afflictions, many their trials and temptations, many their desertions and darknesses, but God will not forsake them; he will not utterly cast them off for ever. That his people are his people in covenant, his secret ones, his spiritual church, the “remnant according to the election of grace,” hath been before declared, in the handling of like places of Scripture. It is to vindicate this and the like promises from all surmises of failing and coming short of accomplishment that the apostle saith, “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew,” Rom. xi. 2; that is, he hath made good his promise to them, even to them among the Jews whom he did so foreknow as also to “predestinate them to be conformed to the image of his Son,” chap. viii. 29: so out of all Israel saving “all Israel,” even the whole Israel of God. That a discriminating purpose of God is intended in that expression hath been already declared, and shall, the Lord assisting, be farther manifested.

The promise as here mentioned hath a double use:—

1. It is held out as an inducement to obedience to that whole people; in reference whereunto he telleth them that “if they did wickedly, they should be destroyed, both they and their king,” 1 Sam. xii. 25. In the dreadful threatenings that God denounceth against wicked and impenitent ones, he hath an end to accomplish in reference to his saints, unto his own, even to make them know his terror, and to be acquainted with the abomination of sin. And in his promises, intended directly to them, he hath designs to accomplish upon the most wicked and ungodly, even to discover his approbation of that which is good, that they may be left inexcusable.

2. It was a testimony of his good-will unto his secret ones, his remnant., his residue, his brand out of the fire, unto his people called according to his eternal purpose, in the midst of his people by external profession, and of his presence with them, under the accomplishment of the threatening mentioned upon the generality of that nation. He did not forsake them when the people in general and their king were destroyed. Whatever outward dispensation he bringeth upon the whole, the love and grace of the promise shall certainly be reserved for them; as, Isa. iv. 2–4, the “remnant,” the “escaping of Israel,” those that were “written unto life,” shall obtain, when the rest are destroyed or hardened.

So Ps. lxxxix. 30–37, “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.”

A supposal is made of such was and walkings in the spiritual seed and offspring of the Lord Christ (which in the psalm is typed out by David), that the Lord will be as it were compelled to deal sharply with them for their iniquities and transgressions: yet his “loving-kindness,” that shall abide with Christ in reference to the preservation of his seed; his “faithfulness,” that shall not fail; his covenant and his oath shall be made good to the uttermost.

It is supposed (which is the worst that can be supposed) that in some degree, at least for some season, they may forsake the law, not keep the commandments, and profane the statutes of God (which continues the burden of poor believers to this day); yet the worst that the Lord threatens them with on this account, when they might have expected that he would have utterly cast off such unthankful, unfruitful backsliders, poor creatures, is but this, “I will visit them with a rod, and with stripes.” They shall have whatever comes within the compass of correction or affliction; rod and stripes shall be on them, and that whether outward correction or inward desertion. But will the Lord proceed no farther? will he not for ever cast them off, and ease himself of such a provoking generation? “No,” saith the Lord; “there lie five things in the way, upon whose account I cannot so deal with them.” All regard the same persons, as is evident from the antithesis that is in the discourse.

1. There is my loving-kindness, saith God, which is eternal and unchangeable; for “I love them with an everlasting love,” Jer. xxxi. 3. This I cannot utterly take away. Though it may be hid and eclipsed as to the appearance and influences of it, yet utterly it shall not be taken away as to the reality of it. Though I chasten and correct them, yet my loving-kindness shall be continued to them. And then, saith he, —

2. There is my faithfulness, which I have engaged to them; which, whatever they do (that is, that I will suffer them to do, or that they may do upon supposition of the grace of the covenant, wherewith they are supplied), though they behave themselves very foolishly and frowardly, yet that I must take care of, — that must not fail. 2 Tim. ii. 13, “He abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself.” And this faithfulness, saith God, I have engaged in three things:—

(1.) In my covenant that I have made with them to be their God, and wherein I have promised that they shall be my people; wherein also I have made plentiful provision of mercy and grace for all their failings. And this must not be broken; my faithfulness is in it, and it must abide. My covenant of peace that I make with them is an everlasting covenant; it is “an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure,” 2 Sam. xxiii. 5; Ezek. xxxvii. 26; it is a covenant of peace, an everlasting covenant.

(2.) “In the thing that is gone out of my lips,” or the grace and love I have spoken of in the promise. Herein also will I be faithful, and that shall not be altered. All my promises are yea and amen in Christ Jesus, 2 Cor. i. 20. And, —

(3.) Lastly, All this I have confirmed by an oath, “I have sworn by my holiness,” and “I will not lie.”

So that in all these immutable things, wherein it is “impossible for God to lie,” he hath treasured up strong consolation for them that do believe. Though, then, the seed of Christ, which he is to see upon the account of his suffering for them (Isa. liii. 10), do sin and transgress, yet God hath put all these gracious obligations upon himself to reduce them by correction and affliction, but never to proceed to final sentence of utter rejection.

To this purpose, I say, are the words in the place of Samuel now mentioned:—

1. The matter of the promise, or what he promiseth the people, is, “he will not forsake them.” God’s not-forsaking them is not a bare not casting them off, but an active continuance with them in love and mercy. He exercises not a pure negative act of his will towards any thing or person. Whom he hates not, he loves. So Heb. xiii. 5, these words, “I will not forsake thee,” hold out a continual supply of all those wants whereunto in ourselves we are exposed, and what from his presence we do receive. “I will not forsake them” is, “I will continue my presence with them, a God in covenant.” So he expresseth his presence with them, Isa. xxvii. 3, “I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” He abideth with his vineyard, so as to keep it and to preserve it from being destroyed. But may it not at one time or other be surprised into desolation? No; saith he, “I will keep it night and day.” But what if this vineyard prove barren? what will he then do? Nay, but he will so deal with it that it shall never be so barren as to cause him to cast it up. He is not with it for nought; his presence is attended with grace and kindness. “I will water it,” saith he; and that not now and then, but “every moment.” He pours out fresh supplies of his Spirit upon it to make it fruitful. Thence it becomes “a vineyard of red wine,” verse 2; the best wine, the most delicious, the most precious, to cheer the heart of God himself, as Zeph. iii. 17, “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” He causes them thereby that come out of Jacob to take root; he makes Israel blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit. This is that which God promiseth his people: He will not forsake them, he will always give them his presence, in the kindness and supplies of a God in covenant, to protect them from others, to make them fruitful to himself. This is his not-forsaking them. He will preserve them from others; who shall take them out of his hand? He will make them fruitful to himself; “he will work, and who shall let him?”

2. The reason why the Lord will not forsake his people, why he will continue doing them good, is expressed in these words, “For his great name’s sake.” And in this assertion two things are considerable:—

(1.) A tacit exclusion of any thing in themselves for which, or upon consideration whereof, God will constantly abide with them. It is not for their sakes, for any thing in them, or for what they have done, may, or can do, — it is not upon the account of any condition or qualification whatever that may or may not be found in them, — but merely for his name’s sake; which in the like case he expresseth fully, Ezek. xxxvi. 32, “Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.” The truth is, they may prove such as, on all accounts whatever, shall deserve to be rejected, — that nothing in appearance, or in their own sense, as well as others’, though the root of the matter be in them, may be found upon them, — when God takes delight in them; like those you have described at large, Isa. xliii. 22–25, “But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt-offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Weary of God they are, neglecting his worship, making his patience and forbearance to serve with their iniquities. It seems to be impossible almost for any creature to apprehend that God will not give them up to everlasting confusion. Yea, perhaps they may be froward in their follies, and contend with God when he goes to heal them: Isa. lvii. 17, “For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart.” Iniquity is upon them, a vile iniquity, “the iniquity of covetousness,” God is wroth with them, and smites, and hides him, and they go on frowardly. And yet for all this he “forsaketh not for ever,” he abides to be their God; and that because his so doing is not bottomed on any consideration of what they are, have been, or will be, but he doth it for his name’s sake, and with regard unto that which thereupon he will do for them. And upon this account this promise of God’s abiding and continuing with his, let grace be never so weak, corruption never so strong, temptations never so violent, may be pleaded; and the Lord rejoices to be put in remembrance of it by the weakest, frailest, sinfulest saint or believer in the world.

(2.) The cause or reason is positively expressed why God will not forsake them: it is “for his great name’s sake.” His great name is all that he consults withal about his continuance with his people. This he calls himself, Isa. xliii. 25, “I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake;” that is, “For no other cause in the world that may be found in thee or upon thee.” The “name “of God is all that whereby to us he is known; all his attributes, his whole will, — all his glory. When God is said to do any thing for his name, it is either the cause and end of what he doth, or the principle from whence with the motive wherefore he doth it, that is by him intended. In the first sense, to do a thing for his name’s sake is to do it for the manifestation of his glory, that he may be known to be God in the excellency of those perfections whereby he reveals himself to his, with most frequently a special regard to his faithfulness and grace. It is in these properties to make himself known, and to be exalted in the hearts of his. So all his dispensations in Jesus Christ are for “the praise of the glory of his grace,” Eph. i. 6, — that he may be exalted, lifted up, made known, believed, and received as a God pardoning iniquity in the Son of his love. And in this sense may the Lord be said to abide with his people “for his name’s sake,” for the exalting of his glory, that he may be known to be a God faithful in covenant and unchangeable in his love, who will not “cast off for ever” those whom he hath once received into favour. It will not enter into the hearts of believers sometimes why the Lord should so deal with them as he doth, and not cast them off. Their souls may go to rest as to this thing. He himself is glorious herein; he is exalted, and doth it on that account. If by his “name” you understand the principle from whence he worketh, and his motive thereunto, as it comprehends the whole longsuffering, gracious, tender, unchangeable nature of God, according as he hath revealed himself in Jesus Christ, in whom his name is, Exod. xxiii. 21, and which he hath committed to him to be manifested, John xvii. 6; so evidently two things in God are engaged, when he promiseth to work for his name’s sake, or according to his great name:—

[1.] His power or sufficiency. Upon the engagement of the name of God on “his people’s behalf, Moses carefully pleads this latter or part thereof, Numb. xiv. 17–19. God hath given his name unto his people; and this is wrapped up in that mercy, that he will lay out his power to pardon, heal, and do them good, in his preserving of them and abiding with them: “Let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is long-suffering,” etc. And as, when he works for his name, the way whereby he will do it is according to the greatness of his power, so the fountain and rise from whence he will do it is, —

[2.] His goodness, kindness, love, patience, mercy, grace, faithfulness, in Jesus Christ. And thus, under the title of his “name,” doth he call poor, afflicted, dark, hopeless, helpless creatures (upon any other account in the world), persons ready to be swallowed up in disconsolation and sorrow, to rest upon him: Isa. i. 10, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.” When all other holds are gone, when flesh fails and heart fails, then doth God call poor souls to rest upon this name of his. So the psalmist, Ps. lxxiii. 26, “My flesh and my heart faileth,” all strength, natural and spiritual, falleth and is gone: “but God is the strength of my heart,” saith he, “and my portion for ever.” Now, this is the sole motive also of God’s continuance with his: he will do it because he himself is good, gracious, merciful, loving, tender; and he will lay out these properties to the utmost in their behalf, that it may be well with them, lifting up, exalting, and making himself gracious in so doing. This the Lord emphatically expresseth five times in one verse: Isa. xlvi. 4, “Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”

This, then, I say, is the reason and only ground, this the principal aim and end, upon the account whereof the Lord will “not forsake his people.”

3. The rise of all this goodness, kindness, faithfulness of God to his people, as to the exercise of it, is also expressed, and that is his own good pleasure: “Because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people.” This is the spring and fountain of all the goodness mentioned. God is essentially in himself of a good, gracious, and loving nature; but he acts all these properties, as to the works that outwardly are of him, “after the counsel of his own will,” Eph. i. 11, according to the purpose which he purposeth in himself, and his purposes, all of them, have no other rise or cause but his own good pleasure. Why did the Lord make us his people, towards whom he might act according to the gracious properties of his nature, yea, and lay them forth and exercise them to the utmost on our behalf? Was it because we were better than others? did his will? walked with him? Did he declare we should be his people upon condition we did so and so? Not on any of these or the like grounds of proceeding doth he do this, but merely because “it pleaseth him to make us his people;” Matt. xi. 26. And shall we think that he who took us to be his people notwithstanding our universal alienation from him, on the account of his own good pleasure, which caused him to make us his people (that is, obedient, believing, separated from the world), will upon any account, being himself unchangeable, not preserve us in, but reject us from, that condition?

Thus is God’s mercy in not forsaking his people resolved into its original principle, — namely, his own good pleasure in choosing of them, carried on by the goodness and unchangeableness of his own nature to the appointed issue.

This, then, is the sum of this argument: What work or design the Lord entereth upon merely from his own good pleasure, or solely in answer to the purpose which he purposeth in himself and engageth to continue in mercy for his name’s sake, thereby taking upon him to remove or prevent whatever might hinder the accomplishment of that purpose, work, or design of his, that he will abide in unchangeable to the end; but this is the state of the Lord’s undertaking, to abide, with his people, as hath been manifested at large.

Let us add in the next place that of the psalmist: Ps. xxiii. 4, 6, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” The psalmist expresseth an exceeding confidence in the midst of most inexpressible troubles and pressures. He supposes himself “walking through the valley of the shadow of death.” As “death” is the worst of evils, and comprehensive of them all, so the “shadow” of death is the most dismal and dark representation of those evils to the soul, and the “valley” of that shadow the most dreadful bottom and depth of that representation. This, then, the prophet supposed that he may be brought into. A condition wherein he may be overwhelmed with sad apprehensions of the coming of a confluence of all manner of evils upon him, — and that not for a short season, but he may be necessitated to walk in them, which denotes a state of some continuance, a conflicting with most dismal evils, and in their own nature tending to death, — is in the supposal. What, then, would he do if he should be brought into this estate? Saith he, “Even in that condition, in such distress, wherein I am, to my own and the eyes of others, hopeless, helpless, gone, and lost, ‘I will fear no evil.’ ” A noble resolution, if there be a sufficient bottom and foundation for it, that it may not be accounted rashness and groundless confidence, but true spiritual courage and holy resolution. Saith he, “It is because the Lord is with me.” But, alas! what if the Lord should now forsake thee in this condition, and give thee up to the power of thine enemies, and suffer thee, by the strength of thy temptations, wherewith thou art beset, to fall utterly from him? Surely then thou wouldst be swallowed up for ever; the waters would go over thy soul, and thou must for ever lie down in the shades of death. “Yea,” saith he, “but I have an assurance of the contrary; ‘goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.’ ”