God Loves… Himself

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

They who call on penitent sinners to believe, mistake both repentance and faith; and that which they teach is no glad tidings to the sinner. Horatius Bonar

This is a huge mistake on Bonar’s part in one context, but of course he may have been speaking of a certain group and painted with too large a brush. Christ called on those who were weary and heavy-laden to come to Him. Are impenitent sinners called to come to Christ? It is also true that sinners have faith (Christ) come to them rather than working up faith in their own strength. Bonar, at least in this chapter, makes it appear that sinners have the strength in them to believe though according to his creed he did not believe that. When Jesus said that a person must be turned and become like a child to enter the kingdom, that is what He meant. A person must indeed be turned. In the context, He is speaking of the humble being the greatest in the kingdom. What is so wrong about calling those who are broken for their sin to believe while telling those who are not broken that they need to be convicted by the Spirit? The Holy Spirit convicts sinners for a reason and it is His work to do so.

To the better class of sinners (if such there be), who have by laborious efforts got themselves sufficiently humbled, it may be glad tidings; but not to those who are without strength, the lost, the ungodly, the hard-hearted, the insensible, the lame, the blind, the halt, the maimed. Horatius Bonar

The efforts of men in seeking the Lord to humble them are one and the same as those who are “without strength, the lost, the ungodly, the hard-hearted, the insensible, the lame, the blind, the halt, the maimed.” These are the spiritually poor and these are the humbled and the contrite. Christ came to these types of people to proclaim the Gospel (Luke 4:18-19). Some of those who are seeking humility from the hand of the Lord are those who will become truly humbled and as such they will see themselves to be without spiritual strength and utterly lost. Those taught of the Lord will see themselves as ungodly and hard of heart. But those who are not taught of the Lord these things will never be broken from pride and self by His hand that graciously works these thing in souls.

“It is not sound doctrine,” says Dr. Colquhoun, “to teach that Christ will receive none but the true penitent, or that none else is warranted to come by faith to him for salvation. The evil of that doctrine is that it sets needy sinners on spinning repentance, as it were, out of their own bowels, and on bringing it with them to Christ, instead of coming to him by faith to receive it from him. If none be invited but the true penitent, then impenitent sinners are not bound to come to Christ; and cannot be blamed for not coming.” Horatius Bonar

But contrary to Dr. Colquhoun, though again it may be in a different context, Christ will receive none but those that are truly penitent. Christ came for real sinners and the really bad ones. Christ came to save those who see themselves as broken and without hope in themselves. No, they don’t earn anything by becoming penitent and seeing the damnation that they so richly deserve, but the heart that sees its sin and has its eyes opened by Christ will be drawn to Christ. The Lord Jesus does not call the impenitent sinner to Himself. But this is quite a different thing than saying that sinners start trying to spin their own repentance, but instead it is those who seek true repentance from Christ that will see that they must be granted repentance. They will also see that they must be granted a new heart to believe.

It does not follow that if only penitent sinners are invited then impenitent sinners are not bound to come to Christ and have no blame. No, it just means that they have not sought Christ to get a penitent heart. The impenitent sinner is full of pride and self and has no real desire for Christ, but that just shows how hard his heart is. This also shows how glorious the grace of God is in the Gospel of grace alone. It is by grace that sinners will begin to seek the Lord for grace. It is by grace that sinners have their eyes opened to see their sin. It is by grace that sinners are drawn to Christ. Bonar’s system seems to leave sinners in their own pride until they decide to believe while the old way of the Puritan’s and Edwards leaves sinners totally at the mercy and grace of God from beginning to end. The Gospel is of grace alone and Bonar’s system fails at this point. Sinners should seek the Lord according to the means of grace and look to His hand to give a new heart, repentance, and faith.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

Spurious repentance, the produce and expression of unbelief and self-righteousness, may be found previous to faith – just as all manner of evils abound in the soul before it believes. But when faith comes, it comes not as the result of this self-wrought repentance, – but in spite of it; and this so called repentance will be afterwards regarded by the believing soul as one of those self-righteous efforts, whose only tendency was to keep the sinner from the Savior. Horatius Bonar

Of course there is a spurious repentance and it comes from unbelief and self-righteousness, but this shows how men should be delivered from self-righteousness and the strength of self before they think they can believe. Anything that comes from the heart that is full of unbelief and self-righteousness will of course be the produce of pride and unbelief. But we must also beware that many people have a faith that is orthodox and moral and comes from a heart of pride and self-righteousness. Spurious repentance and spurious faith are common and all come from pride and unbelief. The unbelieving heart that thinks it believes can say that it believes by grace alone, which leaves people in a rather precarious position if one holds to the things Bonar does. How does one know if the “faith” that one has comes from self and unbelief or comes from a new heart?

The new heart is the key in this issue. Sinners should seek a new heart from God as it is the new heart that makes one a new creature and so one has a true and spiritual faith. Involved in this, if it can be spoken of in that way, is unity with Christ and the indwelling Christ. A true faith is not the same thing as simply believing certain facts as true, but it is what a person has that is united to Christ and has Christ living in him or her. The Scriptures do not give us instructions on how to see if we have faith, though it does tell us things that if we don’t have them we don’t have faith. But instead we are told to examine ourselves to see if Christ is in us and a whole book is written so that people can know if they have eternal life or not. Faith has one object and that is Christ. The whole job of faith, as seen from Romans 4:16 above, is to receive grace. The whole of the Gospel is by faith in order that it may be by grace. One huge issue with Bonar’s apparent position is that it rests upon a mere believing of the facts (though he would deny this elsewhere) as opposed to a belief that is given by grace alone and receives grace alone. Faith cannot see faith but instead it is to be fixed on Christ alone.

Bonar is worried that people will be deceived by a self-wrought repentance, but he does not seem as concerned about a self-wrought belief or faith. He is rightly concerned about that and is correct that a self-wrought repentance will later be seen by a believing soul as a self-righteous effort, but what if that person has a self-wrought belief? How will the person ever come to see that as a self-righteous effort? It seems to me that Bonar’s concern, and a right concern, is far more dangerous from his own position which leads people to a faith which comes from self-righteousness works hidden under the guise of orthodoxy. Bonar’s position does not allow for a true irresistible grace to work, but instead looks for an immediate faith which has all the dangers he is worried about when looking at other positions.

The Gospel of John has several people coming to a quick belief when they saw a miracle or simply believed what Christ had said. But if one traces out what happens to those groups of people, we will see that the vast majority of people who were said to have believed were later seen as lost. An immediate belief without the conviction of the Spirit and His humbling work in the soul is far more dangerous than the evangelistic practices of the Puritans and Edwards. An immediate belief that is joined to a moral life and an orthodox creed is far more dangerous than it is to be instructed to seek a new heart from God by grace alone. What Bonar thinks of a spurious repentance can simply be an unregenerate sinner being turned from his sin by the Spirit. The continuing repentance from outward sin to using the means of grace while seeking God for a new heart seems to have far less dangers than that of Bonar’s immediate belief system which is not biblical. The glorious Gospel of grace alone which starts the conversion of sinners by grace in convicting them of sin and humbling them before God is biblical.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

They who would inculcate a course of prayer, and humiliation, and self-examination, and dealing with the law, in order to believing in Christ, are teaching what is the very essence of Popery; not the less poisonous and perilous, because refined from Romish grossness, and administered under the name of gospel. Horatius Bonar

It seems odd that Bonar would confuse what the Puritans and Edwards taught on how people are to seek God for grace by praying, humiliation of the soul, self-examination, and the use of the Law as means of grace as being the “very essence of Popery.” We could ask Bonar the question that Dr. John Gerstner asked a minister one time, and which others have asked at times as well. Imagine a man who had been attending an orthodox church (could even be a member) for years and knew that the Bible taught irresistible grace and election. He came to the minister and said that he knew he did not believe and was not a Christian. The minister told the man that he needed to believe, but the man said that he knew that but he also knew that God must choose him and that God must draw him. How was he going to believe apart from those things? What would the minister tell the man to do?

The Arminian and the Pelagian have no problems in this area, they just tell the person that they need to believe or that they must repent and believe. But for those who know that the Bible teaches that God must initiate the process, what are they to do before they are converted? Should they just go on in sin and wait until God does what He does? The Reformed person (biblical) understands that God gives faith as a free gift but that He also draws sinners to Himself through the means of grace. The way to having true faith is the real issue. Should men and women wait until God puts faith in them in a single moment or should they seek the Lord to give them a new heart through the means of grace? In light of fact that the Gospel includes irresistible grace, we should look to how that irresistible grace draws men and women from beginning to end.

If a person will only have faith that comes from a believing heart and cannot work that new heart in self, then it is not wrong to tell a person that s/he needs to pray and ask God for a new heart that can and will believe. If God by His grace works humility in the hearts of sinners before He gives them new hearts, then it is not wrong to tell a person and give instructions on how to seek humiliation (self-emptying) before God. If the heart is as deceptive as the Bible teaches and the devil deceives as the Bible teaches, then there will be many who will end up deceived about their salvation on that day. Is it wrong to tell people to examine their hearts since Scripture tells men to examine their hearts? Since the Scripture tells us that we cannot know sin apart from the Law and that the Law is a tutor to men to lead them to Christ, then how can it be wrong to instruct others on using the Law in order to guide them to the end of all hope in self?

These things are not the very essence of Popery, but instead they are the very antithesis of Popery when rightly understood. The teaching of Popery is much closer to what Bonar taught than what the Puritans and Edwards taught. Popery will also say that salvation is by grace, but it also puts the stress on men believing and men doing. That is closer to what Bonar is doing than what the Puritans and Edwards taught in telling men that they were seeking salvation using the means of grace looking to God to save them by grace alone as He wills. The essence of Popery is a form of Arminianism or Pelagianism which puts salvation in the hands of men. What the Puritans and Edwards taught was that salvation is all of grace and grace comes to the soul at the mere pleasure of God.

The Gospel is good news indeed. It is required that men believe, but God works this in men by grace alone. It is God who convicts men of sin in order that they will lose hope in self to believe. It is God who humbles men so that the stout pride in the heart will be broken so that they may have true faith. It is God who alone can use the Law to show men their utter helplessness. That is not Popery, that is biblical and more than that it is a Gospel of grace alone. The sinner is left with nothing to obtain of self but instead can only obtain what is needed by grace. This is the true teaching of grace alone. Bonar misunderstood this.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

Few things are more dangerous to the anxious soul than the endeavors to get convictions, and terrors, and humiliations, as preliminaries to believing the gospel. Horatius Bonar

While it may be the case that Bonar is in a certain context, his own statement is actually quite dangerous. It would seem (at least from this immediate context) that Bonar thinks of believing the gospel as nothing more than believing some information. A heart that truly believes is a new heart or a regenerate heart. The older way of evangelism (Puritans and Edwards) focused on regeneration while Bonar is focused on an activity of the soul in believing. The older way thought that the way to faith was for the heart to be regenerated by grace. The way for a soul to seek regeneration by grace was to seek the Lord to give grace to it. The work of the Spirit is to convict, so how can it be dangerous to seek God for the conviction of the Spirit? It is the work of the Spirit to deliver the soul from pride as God gives grace to the humble, so how can it be dangerous for the soul to seek the Spirit to work humility in the soul? Bonar is confusing the idea that the sinner is to seek the Lord to work these things in the heart by grace with the sinner doing those things himself. But it is very dangerous to think that the heart can just live in sin which hardens the heart and then the next moment without a thought or concern simply believe.

They who would tell a sinner that the reason of his not finding peace is that he is not anxious enough, nor convicted enough, nor humble enough, are enemies to the cross of Christ. Horatius Bonar

This would make the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards, Nettleton, and many others enemies of the cross of Christ. Is it really beyond the Bible to think that a person is not convicted of sin and is not humbled enough to be converted? Is it really beyond the biblical teaching that sinners must be convicted of sin in order to know that they need a Savior from that sin? Christ came to save sinners, which means that He came to save those who know that they are sinners and know this from the depths of their soul. Why is it a fact that in the conversions recorded in Scripture men and women are convicted of sin and even cry out? Why is it so hard to believe that sinners born in pride and hardened in pride must be humbled from that pride as a means of grace that prepares them (prepared by grace) to be saved? According to Habakkuk 2:4, “as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.” Pride is opposite to faith. We are told by Jesus that “unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What does becoming like a child mean if it does not include humility and lowliness? Was Jesus an enemy of the cross for teaching that?

The older way of looking at evangelism and preaching was far more consistent with the biblical teaching that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble and that He will dwell with the humble and contrite in spirit. It is not dangerous and it does not make one an enemy of the cross to tell people that they should seek God for humility and for conviction of sin. Instead of being dangerous, it is fully in line with the total inability of man in spiritual things and teaches men that all that they will receive from God regarding salvation at any point will be by grace alone. It is a simple matter of applying the means of grace.

The contrast between what is presented by Bonar in his writings in this location and the older writers is actually quite important. The older writers would see that God draws men to Himself through the conviction of sin and the humbling of the soul and that men should use the means of grace as they seek the Lord for those things. Bonar seems to think that those things are dangerous and that men should seek to believe. The older writers would say that no one will truly believe apart from being convicted of sin and humbled which are necessary for a person to be born again. The older writers would say that Bonar was dangerous in that he was skipping the way of grace in bringing men to Christ. The way of grace alone starts with grace and ends with grace but uses the means of grace. it teaches men that they should use the means of grace as they seek God for grace. It teaches men that nothing they are doing can possibly move God to save them or earn merit, but that God saves sinners in the way of the means of grace. The old way taught that Christ purchased grace for sinners and they are to seek it in the means of grace. In doing this, the Spirit delivers them from pride and gives grace to the humbled heart. That is not enmity to the cross.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

One huge difference between various methods of evangelism and preaching the Gospel is at the point of faith, repentance, and of grace. People have differed (for various reasons) on how much the Law has to do with the sinner coming to Christ and of the need for sinners to be convicted of sin and of humiliation of the soul. The sides of the debate, though we can acknowledge that it may be the case that many have the same motive (grace alone), yet this is not just a debate that can be dismissed as unimportant. I will argue (as I have argued previously) that this is vital to the Gospel. In the next few BLOGS I will be interacting with one section of Horatius Bonar’s book, THE WAY OF Peace. It is from chapter 11, the chapter on Insensibility. The point I am arguing is that the sinner must be BROUGHT to Christ by grace alone. The sinner has no ability to come to Christ and must be BROUGHT to Christ in order for the sinner to be saved by grace alone. Included in this, of course, is how sinners are taught and enabled to come to Christ by God. If we are to urge sinners to come to Christ, we should tell them the only way that they can come and that is a power that is not of their own.

That terror of conscience may go before faith, I do not doubt. But such terror is very unlike Bible repentance; and its tendency is to draw men away from, not to, the cross. Alarms, such as these, are not uncommon among unbelieving men, such as Ahab and Judas. They will be heard with awful distinctness in hell; but they are not repentance. Horatius Bonar

Bonar notes that a terror of conscience may go before faith, but that such terror is very unlike Bible repentance. He then asserts that the tendency of such terror is to draw men away from the cross. I am not sure where that is taught in Scripture, but that would appear to be in accordance with the things he has experienced in his ministry. While there could be various interpretations of what he meant, it is clear that terror is not the same thing as repentance. However, in the context (see below) it appears that Bonar is trying to get men to preach the mercy, love, and grace of Christ in a way where men are not humbled and broken for sin. He does not think that is necessary. The Scriptures, on the other hand, do show us people who are in terror in their conviction of sin. Jesus preached hell and wrath far more than He preached on love and mercy, so while evangelistic success in terms of numbers may not be a result of preaching terror of conscience, it is certainly true that the Lord Jesus did preach this way.

Sorrow for sin comes from apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, from the sight of the cross and of the love which the cross reveals. The broken and the contrite heart is the result of our believing the glad tidings of God’s free love, in the death and resurrection of his Son. Horatius Bonar

While it is correct that a true sorrow for sin comes from the apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ and from the apprehension of the cross and the love which the cross reveals, those things are for believers. The unbeliever will not apprehend love in the cross and will not apprehend the mercy of God in Christ. It is quite true that the truly broken and contrite heart is the result of a new heart which is a believing heart apprehending the free love of God, but that is not the issue with unbelievers. Men are born with proud hearts and those hearts must be humbled and broken before sinners will see their great need of Christ. Indeed, if they are converted they will have hearts that are humbled and broken in a spiritual way, but the heart that is full of pride and self will see no need of Christ other than perhaps a little help. The Scriptures teach us that the Law is our tutor to bring us to Christ and it does that by showing us our sin and our utter helplessness and inability to keep it.

The Gospel of grace alone shines with the perfection and beauty of Christ and His grace, but in order for sinners to see that they must see their own inability in sin. Sinners must see that Christ is the Physician who saves dead sinners and not those who can help themselves. Sinners must reach an end of their hope in themselves and of their own ability in order to rest in Christ as their hope and their strength. The teaching of the Law to sinners is not to teach them another way of salvation apart from Christ, but to show them that they cannot help themselves in the slightest and they must have Christ alone. Sinners must see that they cannot come to Christ unless they are drawn.

Genesis 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.” 2 Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” 4 Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.” 5 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. 7 And He said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” 8 He said, “O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it?” 9 So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. 11 The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. 12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. 13 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. 14 “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15 “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. 16 “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” 17 It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

In this passage we see once again that it is God who comes to Abram and commits Himself to do what He has said, but again it is not because Abram was a good man with merits. Abram had done nothing but sin and yet we see God working with Abram by grace. Earlier in Genesis God had made promises to Abram, but here we see Abram wondering about the promise. God stated the promise and Abram believed the promise. The text tells us that this was reckoned to him as righteousness. We see the glory of God in the Gospel of grace alone in this. Abram was just wondering around as his forefathers had done, but God came to him and made a promise to him. This promise was based on the purposes of God and came to Abram apart from anything he had done. God has to be the initiator in the Gospel or it is not grace alone. God has to show grace apart from worth and merit or it is not grace alone. This is so clearly seen in God’s dealings with Abram.

Why did God reckon righteousness to Abram when he believed the promise? There are different ways to approach this, but perhaps the best way from the biblical history is to look at it from a Christ-centered view. Faith itself is not righteousness as it is the gift of God, so the person with true faith is one that has been given the gift of faith. Once a person has faith, that person is in some way united to Christ and so righteousness is imputed or reckoned to that person. The righteousness, however, that is imputed is the righteousness that Christ worked while He was incarnate and on earth. The righteousness that was reckoned to Abram, then, was the righteousness that Christ was going to work and Christ was the promised seed of Abram. This is so glorious that the seed that was promised to Abram was the One who was going to work the righteousness that was given to Abram.

We then see the grace of God not only making the promise and giving Abram faith, but He makes the promise based on a covenant in which He basically staked His Divinity on carrying out the promise. This is sheer and uncompromised grace. God took the initiative in coming to and calling Abram, He gave Abram faith to believe that one of his descendants would be the Savior, and He then “walked” between the pieces of the animals which stood for His saying may this happen to Me if I don’t do this. We don’t see Abram making any promise at this point to do anything for his part of the covenant. This was the grace of God on display and for all to marvel at how God is self-sufficient and has no need of human beings to help Him in any way. This also shows us how God is working to fulfill His promise of a curse to the serpent as well. God fulfills His promises of curse but also of blessing. He is sovereign and all-powerful and no one can stand in His way to either curse or carry out His promise that He fulfills by grace alone.

Genesis 11:31 Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan; and they went as far as Haran, and settled there. 32 The days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran. 12:1 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” 4 So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Out of all the people on earth at that time, why did God choose Abram to call out and go to the land that would become Israel? Why did God promise to make Abram into a great nation and bless him? It is a haunting thought to think about this when one thinks of why God does things. Abram was most likely a pagan in the land of Ur who worshipped false gods. But we must also remember that while God operated on sovereign grace, this grace was also connected with the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. The Bible, though some think of the genealogies as boring, gives us a direct link from the seed of the woman (Seth) to Abraham. This is vital. In Genesis chapter 5 a genealogy is given that traces the line of Seth from him to Noah. Then in Genesis 10 we have the lines of the children of Noah traced, and the blessed line of Shem is traced to Tera (Abram’s father) and Abram himself. What we see, then, is the promise of God to crush the head of the serpent being remembered as we see the seed of the woman continuing on. By sovereign grace God makes a line from the woman and then takes Abram from that line.

On the one hand it is easy to get lost in the genealogies and miss the bigger point, but all of this is still the plan of the sovereign God who saves sinners by grace alone. The curse of God on the serpent is grace to those who will be delivered from the bondage of being children of the serpent and become children of God by grace alone. But if we did not have the Scriptures giving us the sovereign grace of God in setting out this line by grace, all we would see is the sovereign grace of God choosing one man from a group of idolaters and starting a nation through him that would eventually be the physical line of Christ Jesus. In the New Testament, all the spiritual seed of Christ are in the line of the seed of the woman. There is nothing about works or merit for salvation, it is all of grace and nothing but grace. Here we see the intent of God to show how much He loves His own glory and how much the love within the Trinity flows. God saves sinners apart from anything in them to make them meritorious or desirable.

There was nothing but sin in Abram by nature or action when God chose Him. The Scripture gives us no reason at all why God would choose Abram but that God chose Abram. No reason is given why God chose Abram from all the other people on earth to be the father of a nation. No reason is given why God decided to make Abram great and bless him. What we see, when the Lord graciously opens our eyes, is the beauty and marvel of God being moved by Himself to keep His promise in crushing the serpent and saving sinners. What we see is the grace of God which is always moved by God’s love for God rather than anything found in sinners. How easy it is to get lost in trying to figure out this and that and simply miss the real glory of the passage and that is God’s hand of grace working a way to manifest the glory of His grace and the grace of His glory. It is God on display in this text and not another. We must learn to view Scripture through the lenses of God’s love for Himself and His glory rather than focusing on Abraham. We must learn to view Scripture through the lenses of the will and plans of God rather than the will and plans of men. Humanism and idolatry are there when we focus on man rather than God.

In Genesis 1 and 2 we see nothing, but then God created. In Genesis 3 we see sin, but then the grace of God. In Genesis 6ff we see the sinfulness of man and the judgment of God, but Noah was shown grace. Then in Genesis 11 we see an idolatrous people as part of the Chaldeans, but God. It is just like in Ephesians 2:1-3 where we see man as dead in sins and trespasses just following the ways of the world, “but God” is what happens in verses 4-5 when He makes man alive because of His love and also because of His grace. It is so common in our day to point men to self and to the will of self, but Scripture knows nothing of that. Instead of that, it looks to the inability and helplessness of man and points man to the ability and help in the free grace of God.