From the Bible we know that whatever events occur in our experience, good or bad, routine or startling, they are all reminders from God to come closer to Him and turn our backs more comprehensively on sin. This principle holds good not only for individuals but also larger communities including nations. Our nation has had a summer of bad weather, with drought in some places meaning a poor harvest, while many domestic and international problems persist whatever efforts are made to tackle them. Our helplessness to do anything about the weather should make us depend more heavily on God, and our inability to solve our own problems should make us apply to Him for wisdom. However, when God sends difficulties and our attempts to improve our situation keep being frustrated, although it should prompt us to repent and turn to God all over again, we often respond in the opposite way. We instead persist in our sinful ways and ignore God’s interest and involvement in our situation. This is not because it is difficult to discern what God wants — just repentance — but because we prefer our sinning to His holiness. As George Hutcheson points out in the following updated extract, until grace intervenes, we commit ourselves to a vicious cycle of a thrawn, obstinate response leading to more trouble and misery, leading to more obstinacy. For ourselves and others, both as individuals and as members of society, we can only appeal to the God of grace to change our hearts so that, on experiencing yet another problem, we take it as an invitation to return to Him to restore us and bless us.

God’s challenge

By the prophet Amos the Lord makes three accusations as against His people. Firstly, they are committing cruel and covetous oppression (Amos 4:1); secondly, they are idolatrous (v.4–5); and here, thirdly, they show incorrigibleness and impenitency (vv.6–11).

For their idolatry and other sins, God had inflicted many judgements to reclaim them, yet they did not return to Him, but persisted obstinately in their wicked courses.

The judgments and corrections which they had thus abused are listed in Amos 4:6–11. And yet to all these, and every one of them, is subjoined the fact that they made no right use of any one of them.

What can we learn from this whole challenge in general?

Persistence in sin is itself sin

When God begins to reckon with a church, He finds her guilty not of one, or a few, but many gross faults. In this process, beside the faults He has already accused her of, He also finds her guilty of being incorrigible.

Believers cannot thrive in sin

A pathway of sin will not turn out to be a way for anyone to thrive in, but this is especially true of the church. The Lord will make His church either a theatre of mercy or a field of blood, and He has many rods to achieve this.

The Lord wants His people to come back

The Lord strikes His church sorest, and with most rods, either together or one after another. Yet in doing so He only calls her to repentance, and drives her to His mercy. His accusation is that, when they were under all these judgements, yet they did not set about turning to Him — the very thing He was aiming at.

Self-affirmed penitence isn’t enough

It must not be people’s own conceits, or their biased self-love, which pass the verdict on the truth and reality of their repentance, but God Himself. Whatever they might claim to offer Him under afflictions, yet He Himself takes charge of discerning its validity.

It isn’t easy to return by way of judgments

Whatever exercise judgements may put sinners to, yet it is not easy to attain to true repentance under them. This is the constant challenge, “Yet ye have not returned to me.” This is not to limit the Lord; of course He both can and does drive people to Him by rods inflicted for sin; yet it is no small difficulty (as sad experience proves) in too many. How so?

Even sad strokes are not soon felt by everyone, or felt in such a way as to stir them up to any spiritual exercise.

When strokes are felt, people quickly and easily feel bitterness, resentment, discouragement, etc. But repentance is a more difficult task, and is often impeded by these distempered reactions.

God’s hand in rods is not soon or easily seen to invite us to repentance as the only remedy, or we see only a little of it because we are too busy looking at instruments and second causes.

When we do in general acknowledge that God is in some way involved in our calamities, yet we may deceive ourselves with a deluded conceit of being delivered in some other way, or by some means other than by turning to Him.

Even when we are convicted of the necessity of repentance, yet it is not easy to attain sincerity and steadfastness in it.

Even when we desire most sincerely to repent under calamities, yet we cannot succeed till first we look back, and mourn for our slighting of the Word which drew down the rod.

In short, no providence can produce repentance, without the grace of God. Instead, troubles of themselves will drive people further from repentance.

Our incorrigibleness

It indicates very sad wrath on God’s part, and much impenitence on our part, when not only the same judgements continue, but new judgements are inflicted, one after another. The variety of rods declared that Israel had not yet returned to God, and that He was still pursuing them. None of the rods formerly inflicted had any effect, but God was still angry, and they were still walking contrary to God. This provokes Him to walk contrary to us, and punish us yet more.

Those who do not repent after one rod are liable to misuse (and harden themselves under) many. Judgements are in themselves stupefying, and only harden sinners, unless grace prevents it. Misuse of one rod draws on more hardness, and makes a sinner fit for misusing more rods.

Famine

Famine is a rod which could have brought them back to God’s ways — “I have given you cleanness of teeth (famine, no food to foul their teeth) and lack of bread” (v.6). Sinners may think little of their daily bread, but famine is a sad stroke.

When people will not be led even by the principles of reason to acknowledge God, or accept their duty, or to take notice of any evidences of God’s displeasure against them, it shows they have become like the brute creatures. Then it is only just that God treats them like animals, pinching them in their belly, as a stroke which they would feel.

Sin is for the most part so deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and they take so little notice of God in calamities, that it is no wonder to see people starved out of the world before they will famish their idols, and relinquish sin.

It is righteous with God to let people smart from want when they have abused prosperity. These people abused their plenty to serve their lusts and make themselves drunk (v. 1). They left God’s temple and priests without sacrifices and maintenance, instead spending what they had on their idols, and on maintaining unlawful priests (vv. 4–5).

It adds to the affliction, that it was “in all your cities,” and “in all your places” (v.6). It is a sad lot, and indicates much displeasure from the Lord, when He makes strokes universal, so that no one can help anyone else.

Drought

The longer sinners are warned of judgements before they are inflicted, the more it heightens their impenitence before the Lord. It adds to the people’s sin that they had three months’ drought before the harvest came (the time when rain was most needed) to warn them of the ensuing famine, and yet it had no effect. “Ye have not returned to me” (vv.7–8).

As God’s providence is supreme in ordering all natural causes and effects, even in dispensing rain, so it aggravates the impenitence of sinners when God’s hand is eminently seen, and yet they do not seek Him.

The Lord, when He pleases, can make as small a matter as a drink of water prove a great trial to a people. “Two or three cities wandered to one city (likely where it had rained) to drink water” (v.8). It cannot but add to a people’s sin, when they are made to feel a stroke, and it gives them toil, and yet they don’t use it to recognise God’s point of view, or turn to Him.

Notwithstanding their wandering from city to city, “they were not satisfied” (v.8). Whatever sinners do to get rid of troubles, yet when they neglect repentance, it is fitting and just that they will be disappointed in their efforts.

It is our great sin that when we are disappointed in all our expectations, and thwarted in all our efforts to get rid of troubles, yet we will not, among our other attempts, try to turn to God. “Yet have ye not returned to me, saith the Lord” (v.8).

Blight and locusts

God can arm all His creatures to cut off provision, one after another. Beside the drought, He sends blight and mildew to cut off their corn, and the palmerworm (locust) to spoil their gardens, vineyards and other fruit-trees (v.9).

Under affliction, people look mainly at the present particular means of their trouble; yet even if that is removed, it will not avail them so long as God is angry. Rather, whatever change there may be in providence, the impenitent may expect to meet with trouble. The blight came by withering winds, but when that was removed, and they got rain, it was no use to them — cold rain followed by the heat of the sun bred mildew.

It is a great aggravation of impenitency, when the Lord makes all kinds of creatures prove enemies, and yet people will not be driven to make God their friend. “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” (v.9)

Plague and violence

When famine did not prevail, God had pestilence and the sword to use against them. It is very sad and humbling that the Lord, who previously appeared gloriously for His people by plaguing their enemies, is now provoked to make His own people feel the same plagues. “I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt” (v.10a). And it is even sadder when this does not drive them to God.

Where God has a controversy, the endeavours of a nation against their enemies will have little effect, and will only contribute to heaping miseries on themselves. They ought to see God’s hand in this. “Your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses, and I have made the stink of your camp to come up into your nostrils” (v.10b).

Yet they would not be induced to turn to God! He not only made the endeavours of enemies successful, but smote them with pestilence. Their low condition, with a broken military force, and their camp stinking, was a warning to them, “yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” (v.10).

Overthrow

The visible church may transgress so far as to deserve to be afflicted as severely as the worst of people, and God may in justice inflict what she deserves. “I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah” (v.11).

Nevertheless, the Lord is still gracious to His church and people. He preserves a remnant of them in the midst of utter desolation, and notwithstanding great provocations. He may still see it fit that those who are preserved will bear the marks of these calamities, so that they will be stirred up to make good use of what they have experienced. He says to the remnant preserved, “Ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning” (v.11), pointing out both His goodness in plucking them out, and the prints of the fire that were left on them.

It is an undeniable proof of a people’s incorrigibleness, when neither the extremity of judgements, nor the extremity of God’s displeasure, nor His immediate hand in them; nor the fact that in wrath He has remembered mercy, will prevail with them to make them turn to God. “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” (v.11).

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We comfort ourselves sometimes with the thought that things can’t get much worse. The problem is that things often do get worse. Decision-makers in society continue to make worse decisions and don’t seem to learn from their own or other people’s mistakes. The UK’s recent dramatic relaxation of the law to protect the unborn and their mothers in England and Wales is an example of something that is flagrantly morally wrong and self-evidently harmful, yet presented with fanatical assurance as something compassionate and helpful. In George Hutcheson’s view, once people get in the habit of rejecting God’s way, it sets them on such a self-destructive path that they often don’t even notice the signs that things are going badly. Nothing can get through to them that they need to change course. George Hutcheson was reflecting on the terrible distress that the prophet Habakkuk experienced as he witnessed the societal breakdown in his own times. Habakkuk cried out in desperation to God to please make the injustice and violence stop. Whereas we would normally expect a happy ending in which God answers His servant’s prayer, God’s shocking response to Habakkuk was that things were going to get very much worse, simply as the righteous consequence of the people’s wilful rebellion and flagrant sinning. As the following updated extract shows, instead of comforting ourselves with how “things” usually work out for the best, we need to lift our eyes and our hearts to the covenant-keeping God, whose holiness and power is infinite. His faithfulness is such that we can appeal to His mercy merely as such, without needing to point to any positive developments or encouraging signs. We can rely on his faithfulness and his justice as we increase our efforts to share the gospel and a godly way of life.

His cry

In the first chapter of his prophecy, Habakkuk begins by expostulating with God, speaking in his own name and the name of the godly. “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! Even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!” (Hab. 1:2) With the generality of the people being so desperately wicked, why does the Lord in His patience still bear with them, and take no course to vindicate His own glory, or abate this deluge of sin one way or other?

Habakkuk brings in various considerations. For one thing, he has worked so hard with these people, but to no purpose. Instead, with their injustice swelling up and breaking out in open violence, he had been forced for a long time to cry to God against them. Yet his prayer was not regarded, neither were the oppressed saved from violence, and Habakkuk finds this so strange.

We are not to understand this as if Habakkuk were quarrelling with God, nor as if he didn’t care about this people (later on in his prophecy he evidences great tender-heartedness toward them). Instead, the problem is that he has worked among them for so long, and pleaded with God for so long for some success to his ministry, yet he finds that iniquity still abounds, to the dishonour of God, and oppression of the godly. Not so much out of any hatred against them, but rather out of zeal to God’s honour, hatred of sin, and pity toward the oppressed, Habakkuk complains that there was no redress of this, and that God was not stopping the course of sin, either by amending them or by correcting them.

The iniquities which Habakkuk mentions are especially sins against the second table of the law (commandments 5 to 10, setting out our duties towards each other). The duties of the second table are a touchstone, by which we can test the sincerity of those who profess to be true believers within the visible church. Equally, when people once reveal their unsoundness by breaking these commandments, they may readily come to a very great height in such sins. Here, they had come to the extremity of “violence” among themselves.

The iniquity of a visible church may come to such heights that those who would normally want to stand in the gap to plead with God on the people’s behalf may be ready, if not to cry against them, yet to submit if God were to send judgements. Habakkuk is so hard pressed, with how their sin dishonours God, and oppresses the godly, that he cries that God would one way or other stop the course of their iniquity.

The godly, and especially those who are called to carry the Lord’s word to His people, have to factor into their expectations, not a smooth and easy life, but a life of wrestling under much humbling, toil and vexation. That was Habakkuk’s lot here, and the lot of the godly, in whose name he complains. Yet the best way to make people’s endeavours in their calling effectual (especially those who are employed in dealing with souls) is to be much with God in prayer. Cries to God are our best weapons against sin.

His concern

Habakkuk goes on to amplify his complaint. “Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me, and there are that raise up strife and contention” (Hab. 1:3).

This makes the reason why he was complaining clearer, and sets out more of the people’s sin. Their wickedness was seen in vexing and grieving one another, and the godly amongst them, and in their violent spoiling of one another, together with their way of starting and pursuing lawsuits and contentions All these were not only public and open in the view of Habakkuk and the godly, wherever they went, but a great grief and vexation to them. Their hearts were over-charged when they saw such wickedness — and God taking no action against it.

But when once people shake off the fear of God, it is righteous of Him to give them up to break all the bonds of love, humanity and civil society. These godless people are given up to iniquity, grievance, spoiling, violence, etc. In this way the Lord shows how unfixed people become in all things when they do not hold not fast the root of His fear.

Even though it is the duty of the Lord’s people and faithful servants, not to carve out what shall be their own lot and success in the world, yet they ought not only to keep themselves unspotted from the sins of their times, but to be seriously affected and vexed with these iniquities of the times. Habakkuk says, “Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance?” He is not so much quarrelling with God’s providence towards him as testifying to his own vexation and the vexation of the godly at seeing these things (Ezek. 9:4; 2 Pet. 2:7–8).

His ineffectiveness

Something else that adds weight to Habakkuk’s complaint (and displays yet more of the iniquity of the times) is taken from the consequence of God’s indulgence toward them — that they were emboldened to sin by it, and only grew worse in response to being spared! “Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth” (Hab. 1:4).

When the prophets preached, and the people rebelled, and yet God spared them, they took from this that they could despise the law and word of God as a dead thing, having no vigour nor authority, and so they ran on in all sorts of mad courses. As it so often proves, the Lord’s forbearance and long-suffering becomes a snare to the wicked, hardening them in their evil course. The effect was that no justice was to be found; for, if there were any who respected equity or right, they were so overpowered by the multitude of the wicked ones that they dared not appear, nor could achieve anything, and so justice was inevitably wrested.

The godly should endeavour to have their zeal against sin cleanly, and arising on justifiable grounds. Here Habakkuk makes it clear that his zeal against the iniquity of the times did not flow from any harm he sustained from it, but from the over-turning of all religion and the justice that appeared in it.

It is not simply the fact that we have the Word of God that will make us blessed, but when it has authority and vigour in our hearts and practices. This people had the law, but Habakkuk’s lament is that it was lifeless in its authority. “The law is slacked,” he says, using a figure of speech that refers to the faint or lifeless pulse of a dying man.

Contempt for the authority of God’s Word opens the door to all wickedness, for these two things are conjoined, “the law (of God)” and “judgment going forth.” Justice goes to ruin in society when Christianity has no place.

The guiltiness of a land reaches a terrible point when judicatories and courts of justice become corrupt. That is the height of their impiety, and the evidence of a despised law.

Times of general defection ordinarily prove to be times of great trial to the godly and righteous. “Then the wicked compasseth about the righteous, therefore wrong judgement proceedeth.” Not only are their souls vexed, and they are supplanted in their righteous cause, but they dare hardly appear against the stream of injustice. Or, if they do speak out, they are unable to bring about anything that is right, but everything keeps going wrong, whatever they do.

His worst fears confirmed

When the Lord answers Habakkuk, it is to give a terrifying announcement that the people would be destroyed by a Chaldean invasion (vv.5–11).

When people harden themselves in their evil ways because of God’s forbearance, and the Word has no authority among them, then the Lord will speak in a different way, i.e., by His rod. The Lord’s long-suffering patience toward impenitent sinners will not last for ever. When their iniquity comes to a height, it will end in sad judgements, and abuses of the mercy offered to the church deserves sadder judgements than the sin of heathens.

Yet it is usual that when judgement comes on an impenitent people, they don’t manage to interpret it properly, but are surprised with to the point of astonishment under it. This response flows from their now-ingrained contempt of God’s Word, a contempt which stupefies them to the extent that judgements cannot pierce their stupefaction. So it proves fruitless, and only portends the further ruin of those who continue in it. God is only just when those who dote on their privileges and despise the Word meet with unexpected and incredible judgements. Divine indignation against sin is more terrible, and will appear more sad when it is inflicted, than complacent sinners ordinarily imagine.

His bare faith

From verse 12 to the end of the chapter is Habakkuk’s response to this answer. In a speech directed to God, he confirms his own faith and the faith of the godly that God’s church will be preserved from destruction in this calamity, and not be totally extinguished by her captivity in Babylon. His confidence is in God’s covenant with them, His eternal immutability, His holiness, and His purpose, power, and providence in appointing the Chaldeans to punish and “correct” the church (but not destroy it).

When believers have God’s promise to preserve His church, they may humbly carve their own response according to it, and when they come to God in prayer, they may by faith tell Him what they are looking for and are confident of getting. This is how Habakkuk can tell the Lord, “We shall not die” (v.12).

When we know God as our own covenant-keeping Redeemer, we can derive comfort from Him in the saddest times. Habakkuk gathers his confidence from “the Lord my God.” Our faith is strengthened when we take in the nature, properties, and way of God, the covenant-making and promise-making God. “My God is Jehovah,” Habakkuk reasons, “able to give a being to things promised.” He is “from everlasting,” and so immutable in His purposes, and will eternally have a people to be His spouse and subjects. “He is from of old the Lord my God, or the church’s God, by a covenant of grace,” Habakkuk says. And “He is my Holy One,” without all taint of impurity, and therefore, as He disapproves of sin, and punishes it in His people, so He will not spare it in enemies, far less falsify His own covenant and the promise He made to His people.

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Although the birth of Jesus was the turning-point of history it was still only an early step on the path He was purposefully taking towards His atoning death and glorious resurrection. With only a few exceptions, people didn’t recognise Him at His birth or throughout His childhood. It was not until His public ministry began, in His adulthood, that the good news started ringing out, “We have found the Messiah!” Two men chatting with John had their attention caught when Jesus was walking away from them. In the following updated extract, George Hutcheson takes us through John’s concern to point out the Lamb of God, the disciples’ longing to know Christ better, and then the impulse in every believer to bring others to know the Lord too.

Preachers must preach Christ

When Christ comes by, John points him out as the true sacrifice for sin, to the two disciples he was with (i.e., those who had embraced his doctrine, and were more than ordinary hearers). “John stood, and two of his disciples. And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God” (vv.35–36).

As Christ does not fail to cast opportunities of well-doing in His servants’ way, so they ought to neglect no occasion of doing good, and of leading people to Christ. John had given testimony to Him the previous day, and today, as He walks by them, now going away, John will preach Him and point Him out, even to only two disciples.

Christ’s faithful servants will make conscience to exalt Him, and to lead people to Him, and not to themselves. Not only in public, where many may observe, but even in their most private conversations, it will be their care that those who respect them most would be led away from them to Christ.

A sight of Christ is not only an opportunity but a notable help to enable ministers to preach and point Him out to others. As John was looking on Jesus as He walked, he is encouraged to commend Him, and likewise a sight and enjoyment of His spiritual presence will notably equip ministers to speak of Him.

It is the duty of faithful ministers to be much in preaching Christ crucified, and pointing Him out as the only propitiatory sacrifice for sin. That is why John again points Him out in this way, “Behold the Lamb of God!” This is both a chief point of Christian knowledge, and a powerful means of conversion.

Christ crucified is the main attraction

The two disciples who John’s testimony affected were Andrew (v.40) and (probably) John (because he notes the circumstances in so much detail). Hearing John’s doctrine, they are taken with it, and follow Christ.

When Christ enquires what they are doing, they declare that they are seeking to Him as their teacher, and to have more acquaintance with Him. On this they are warmly invited to go with Him, and they stay with Him all night, learning excellent things.

Small ordinances and few words may do much good, when Christ is pleased to breathe, and something that has no effect at one time may yet be blessed at another. John’s short testimony works on both his hearers today, touching their hearts and drawing them to believe, though we read of no effect from the same doctrine more amply enlarged the day before.

Just as the doctrine of Christ as a sacrifice for sin is sweet to those who are trained in the school of repentance, as John’s disciples were, so it is also the chief instrument of conversion. Whatever other divine doctrine people receive, it will only turn them into moralists, unless they also receive and embrace the doctrine of Christ crucified, and Christ Himself displayed in it. That’s what makes people real Christians.

Those who rightly hear Christ preached will never get rest till they attain to some more acquaintance with Himself. These disciples “heard him speak, and they followed Jesus” (v.37). The heart touched by the Word is set on work to follow after and seek communion with Him. For this end, they will miss Him, and follow after Him, never resting till they get Him.

Christ notices who takes an interest in Him

Christ takes notice, and knows very well who it is who is following Him, even though His back seems to be toward them (it says He “turned, and sees them following,” v.38, indicating that He knew they were behind Him).

Although Christ seems to go away from these who follow Him, and lets them follow for a while, the reason for this is to stir them up, and exercise and reveal their faith all the more, and in the end, He will turn and manifest Himself to them.

Those who follow Christ should very seriously examine and enquire why they are doing so. Is it for an easy life and outward benefits, or for spiritual reasons? Are they seeking Christ Himself, or only His gifts? What estimation do they have of Him, if they are seeking Himself? Unless they do this, and unless they are single-minded in their aim, they will not find Christ giving them such a sweet welcome. That’s why Christ starts with the question, “What seek ye?” as needful to be answered, and till then He keeps a distance.

The disciples reply giving Him the title “Rabbi,” which is, “master,” or “teacher.” From this we can gather that one right goal in seeking Christ is, out of the sense of our ignorance and errors, to employ Him to be our soul’s master and teacher, the one who can infallibly and effectually instruct us.

Those who have any sound knowledge of Christ will use means to be more acquainted with Him, and those who come to Him for right ends will not have their errands with Him done quickly. They can’t get enough of Him! This much is indicated in the disciples’ answer, “Where dwellest thou?” It’s not so much about getting a little information about Him by the by, as because they want to have more familiar acquaintance with Him.

Those who seek Christ for Himself will get warm invitations and hearty hospitality from Him in the end. Just as they are not willing to be quickly done with Christ, so He will find means to hold them on with Him. “Come and see,” He says. He doesn’t say, “Let’s arrange something when you’re free,” but brings them along with Him. If we take it up spiritually, it indicates that Christ’s sincere followers will be made to know by experience the place where His honour dwelleth, by tasting the blessing of public ordinances, till they come to dwell with Him for ever. Also, they can better take up these things by seeing and experience, than by any report.

As soon as He said it, “they came and saw where he dwelt” (v.39). When Christ gives invitations, it is wise to embrace the offer, and not to delay, when either the Word or the lively working of the Spirit with it, is calling and alluring their hearts.

Those who follow Christ’s call, may not only get the good they expect, but His providence may cast unexpected benefits in their way. “They abode with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour” (v.39), or, according to the Jewish calculation (by which every day was divided into twelve hours, longer in summer and shorter in winter), two hours before night. They came only to know where He was staying, but providence ordered that they got a night’s lodging with Him, and so they could learn more of Him.

Christ’s new followers want others to follow too

“One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus” (vv.40–42).

Those who have gotten any knowledge of Christ, and are brought in to Him, ought to be careful to invite others to Him. True grace sanctifies natural affection, and makes you express that natural affection by seeking spiritual good to those to whom you are related by nature. So, “Andrew seeketh his own brother, Simon” (v.41).

“And he brought him to Jesus” (v.42). Whatever may be lacking in the light of the instruments who point out Christ, it will be made up for, if the hearer goes to Christ Himself. Faithful preachers will not be at ease till they draw hearers to Christ, and hearers should be tractable, when means are offered, and not stop short on the word of any man, but go to Christ themselves. Andrew has little more to say, but he draws Peter to Christ, and Peter goes with him.

Kindness begins on Christ’s side, and His grace goes before the sinner. Andrew found Peter before he even dreamed of such good news.

The finding of Jesus, the promised Messiah, is good news indeed, and the most excellent of purchases, for it makes the finder eternally happy. The good news that went around among them was, “We have found the Messias!” (v.41).

The titles given to Christ in Scripture are not to be lightly passed over, but pondered, for their meanings are for our edification and comfort. In particular, He has taken to Himself the title “the anointed one,” or “the Messiah,” or in Greek “the Christ,” in that He was anointed by the Spirit without measure for carrying out all His offices for the good of the church.

Christ will welcome those who come to Him, whoever were the instruments of their conversion, and however poor their outward condition is. He welcomes Peter, though he only came on account of a conversation with Andrew, as warmly as those who were called by John, and even though he was only poor Simon, the son of the fisherman Jona.

Christ gives a new nature to those who come to Him, and includes them in His family as children. This is what is indicated by Christ giving Peter a new name (v.42) — that he was now a born child in His family, and He was his father. Yet, at the same time, He puts him in mind that he is still “Simon the son of Jona” (v.42), for whatever dignity and excellency He confers on His converts, He does not want them to forget what they are in themselves, to still keep them humble, and to commend His grace the more.

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Our culture offers significance without transcendence — the prospect of finding meaning and fulfilment but in humanistic terms that make no reference to deity or the supernatural. This offer persists, even though by experience it continually founders on the very average, even mediocre, and largely unfulfilling reality of our everyday existence. By contrast, Christianity is unashamed to offer fulfilment outside of and beyond human activities and attainments — in life with Christ. This offer is realistic about our spiritual sickness and inertia, going so far as to identify our basic problem as spiritual death and ever-increasing corruption. But the life of Christ is the ineffable, abundant, fountain of the life of God Himself, and the good news is that this is what dead and dying sinners are invited to participate in. Several times in the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ is said to have life, or claims to be life, or says He will give sinners life. In the following updated extracts, George Hutcheson comments on the life — eternal life — which is available in and from Jesus for otherwise unfulfilled and perishing sinners.

Life is in Jesus

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4).

Not only does the Lord Jesus have life in Himself essentially from the Father (John 5:26), but the life of all living creatures is “in him.” Life is in Him as in the fountain cause (as the stream is in the fountain, and rays of light are in the sun): and in Him still as the preserver when it is given (as the fountain constantly feeds the stream, so that it does not dry up).

Believers ought to study the Godhood of Christ their head, shining in His giving life to all living creatures, and their having their life still in Him, so that when they observe all the variety of living things, from the least to the greatest, which are fed by that fountain, they may come confidently to Him for life and enlivening, as He is the one who can create life. He is the one who can restore a soul, and bring to life a dead piece of clay. Then they need not be discouraged by their baseness when they come to Him (considering that He does not disdain to communicate life to the basest worm and smallest midgie) and they may hold their spiritual life from Him, abiding in Him in whom life still is, when they get it. Then too, they may not fear that their life will decay, when they dwell in the one in whom is the inexhaustible fountain of life, and the one who preserves and continues the life of all creatures.

He gives eternal life

“Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:15).

Christ here points Himself out as the Saviour of sinners, having sufficient virtue to cure the sinfulness and misery of those who flee to Him by faith, and to keep them from perishing, and save them. It is only believing in Him, and laying hold on Him by faith, that brings a cure for the guilt of sin, the pain of conscience through sin, and the dominion of sin. Although all without Christ are in a state of perishing, and excluded from heaven, yet by faith in Him sinners are freed from death, and made heirs of life. “They shall not perish but have eternal life,” and this includes remission of sins, reconciliation to God, perseverance in the state of grace, and all the means leading to these ends.

Love gives everlasting life

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

The way of deliverance is not to be ascribed to anything in us procuring it (for God might justly have damned us all), but only to the free love of God. Love to lost sinners is not to be thought of as shining only in Christ (who willingly gave Himself to redeem), but also in the Father. The Father loved lost sinners, and sent His Son to suffer and to do the work of a mediator, so that through His mediation He would, not begin to love them, but convey the effects of His love in a way agreeable to his justice. God loved the world, and that preceded Him giving Christ, and was the cause of it.

Every one who believes in Christ is not only delivered from perishing by Christ’s undergoing wrath for him, but is instated in a right to eternal blessedness. This eternal blessedness the believer shall certainly attain, here in the pledge and bud, and hereafter in full enjoyment.

The blessedness which Christ purchased to believers is the only thing that really deserves the name of “life.” All other life is only a kind of death in comparison with it. It shall be blessedness eternally and without end.

Life flows out into eternity

Jesus said, “Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13–14).

The water of life, although Christ purchased it, yet it must be His free gift to us (who cannot buy it), and His offer includes a promise of giving it to every one who will receive it in the due order. The promise is made indifferently, i.e., without respect of persons. He does not say, “I can give,” but, “I shall give him,” i.e., if he receives my offer, indefinitely, whoever he may be.

Anyone who partakes of the true grace of God in this way, it will refresh and satisfy him, so as to quench his thirst after vanity and earthly delights, and make these things tasteless. “Whosoever drinks of this water shall never thirst.”

The Spirit and grace of Christ in believers is not a stream or a pond, that may run dry, but “a well,” and a “springing” well, of inexhaustible fullness, virtue and refreshment. It is not the kind of well which may rot and make water taste bad, but a springing well, constantly fresh. It is not only a spring which keeps within its banks, but a well of water leaping up, and watering all around. The Spirit and grace of Christ flows out in all the activity of those who receive them, making them fruitful. It flows out also on others, to their good and edification.

As the truly godly have no limit to religion but eternity, and their desire is to keep fresh till the end, so, where the Spirit of Christ is, He will still be pouring out His virtue and riches from day to day, and letting out more and more to the sinner till eternity comes. Then, when all the banks of incapacity, sin, distance, ignorance, mortality, etc., have been broken down, and the windows of heaven have been opened, this stream and well becomes an ocean, and grace, smothered here under corruption and infirmity, gets leave to spread itself out freely in glory.

Life comes by hearing

Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall life” (John 5:24).

The promises of eternal life are absolute in Christ’s intention toward His own people, and He undertakes to perform all the conditions which He requires of them, when they are humble and flee to Him.

Whatever remainders of the image of God people may have, and whatever excellencies, yet they are spiritually dead till Christ comes to them. They are destitute of spiritual life and of the favour and peace of God. They are dead, by a sentence of the law passed against them, unconscious of it and unable to help themselves.

But such is the power of the gospel, being the voice of the Son of God, that not only will it speak to those who have ears, but it will raise dead souls to life by conversion, and give them an ear to hear, and make them believe.

Those who are regenerated and raised from the dead by the Word of the gospel, and who embrace it (and Christ in it) by faith, the life that is begotten in them shall be cherished and nurtured and carried on by the enjoyment of the beginnings of conformity and communion with Christ, until it is perfected with glory. “They that hear (or, those who, being regenerated, are made to hear so as to believe) shall live.”

Jesus gives life more abundantly

Jesus said, “The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Those who make themselves out to be the Messiah, or who run unsent and bring in corrupt doctrine, Christ declares to be enemies, and not shepherds. They come only to do the flock harm. But His business is to give them life, and life in great abundance.

Christ is the kind of shepherd who will be so far from destroying His flock that He will “give life,” even to those of them who are dead.

Christ’s great aim in coming to the world is to purchase and confer life on His own elect people. However He treats them, yet it all tends towards this great aim. When they think it otherwise, it is their own mistake, “for,” He says, “I am come that they might have life.”

By His coming, Christ intends not only life to His flock, but “more abundant life.” He will not only give the life that will simply supply the basic needs of His people, but such a super-abounding measure that it will testify to His fullness, and completely refresh them.

Once He has conferred this abundant life in conversion, He will make it grow more and more while they are within time (1 Thess. 4:1–4). Yet all this is but a drop, in comparison of the abundance of life that is reserved for His people in glory. In these respects He says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

Jesus gives us life by His death

He said, “I lay down my life for the sheep” (v.15, v.17–18).

Christ, held out with His ignominious cross, is the great stumbling-block of the world. Yet, although the shame and ignominy joined to the cross add to its grievousness, it could not hold Christ back from undergoing it, and indeed He provides various considerations to make it appear lovely.

He declares that the Father loves Him because of this suffering. The Father is so well pleased with the reconciliation of lost sinners that He both loves Christ for taking on the work, and is fully satisfied with how His suffering attains that goal.

Also, He declares that He was to lay down His life, not to continue as the prisoner of death, but so that, having paid the ransom, He could take His life again, with the Father’s approval.

Finally, He declares that He did all this in obedience to the Father’s command. The way of accomplishing our redemption was agreed on between the Father and the Son in advance.

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It seems that globally, our turbulent times are only becoming more uncertain, with threats of war on an increasing scale, and oppressive regimes across the world getting the upper hand. The tides of history are changing yet again, with once unchallengeable dogmas now being overturned and conventional wisdom seeming suddenly outdated. Francis Fukuyama, who coined the term “the end of history,” once argued that Western liberalism was the end point of mankind’s ideological development. Now, however, in response to the landslide US election, he has suggested that classical liberalism itself is in decline. Whatever stance we take in discussions like this, the Lord is still working inexorably towards accomplishing His own purposes, even though the process may be inexplicable and the outcome unimaginable to us. In his analysis of the prophecy of Joel, George Hutcheson identifies several seemingly incompatible strands to the Lord’s care of His church. For one thing, the Lord allows His church to be suppressed and harassed by His enemies. For another thing, this experience of evil actually works for the church’s good. Then again, all the hostile activity of the enemies against the church only ends up contributing to their own destruction. Whatever changes and upheavals take place, and whatever our opinion of the rise and fall of political parties, the Lord’s flock is at the centre of all His workings in human history and, as the following updated extract from Hutcheson’s commentary shows, faith grasps the fact that the Lord’s glory will not be diminished in all of this.

The Lord is still able to save His people

We see from Joel 3 that in opposition to the cruelty of their enemies, and indeed for a recompense of their cruelty, the Lord passes sentence in favour of His people. He commits Himself to gather His people, and bring them out from under their bondage, and to reward these enemies.

We learn from this that, whatever projects there may be against the church, yet they will never win their point against her. Though they wanted to have the Jews so far removed that they would never return, yet, He says, “I will raise them up” (Joel 3:7).

The Lord can restore His people whenever it pleases Him, and when His time comes, neither His former rejecting of them, nor their desperate condition, will hinder it. Though they were sold, so that they would never return, yet, He says, “I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them” (v.7).

God can deliver His people, even though their condition seems as hopeless as that of raising dead men (Eze. 37:11–12), and even supposing they themselves have as little thought of deliverance as someone who is asleep. “I will raise them” in the original means “I will awake them.”

The Lord’s people may expect great things

The wonderfulness of what God promises should be no impediment to our faith. God both can and will bring about the deliverance of His people in an admirable way, as something to “Behold” (v.7).

The mere fact that enemies triumph for a long time, is no reason not think that they will always escape. God, in due time, at the deliverance of His people, will repay them for all they have done. When God performs all this deliverance for His people, it is added, “and will return your recompense upon your own head” (v.7).

God will repay enemies using the same measure that they have measured to His people. He may even make His church instrumental in doing so. Yet, however the judgement may be executed, He is still the principal agent in it. “I,” he says, “will sell your sons and your daughters into the bands of the children of Judah” (v.8), i.e., “deliver them into their hand, and put them under their power, to be at their disposal.” “And they shalt sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off.” The Sabeans were on the remote coasts of Arabia, or, it may be understood that the Sabeans would sell them to a people yet more remote. In which sentence we should see the justice of God, in dealing with them as they had dealt with Judah.

God’s Word is sufficient for the church to rest on in expecting the greatest things. It should be sufficient ground of terror to enemies, that the Word hath spoken sad things against them. This is why it is added, by way of confirmation, “For the Lord hath spoken it” (v.8).

The Lord’s methods are marvellous

What follows in verses 9 to 12 is a description of the way that this sentence will be executed. First, the enemies will be summoned to convene together. They shall be gathered together by the effectual providence of God to fight against His people. They shall prepare as much armour as they can, and shall encourage one another to go to war, and even the weak shall take courage to embark on this enterprise. They will convene not a few, but many on every hand, more than enough to encircle the people of God. Yet even so, the Lord will have His own mighty instruments for executing vengeance. All their efforts will only be a way of bringing them to the place which He has appointed for judging them (v.12).

The activities of enemies are only in the service of God’s providence. They are only doing what He stirs them up to do in order to bring about His holy ends. This proclamation, “Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, etc.” (v.9), tends to show that their projects are all of God, so as to bring about His purposes.

God is not afraid of people’s efforts, nor of the courage of the mighty, nor of their vigilance, activity, numbers, preparations. He does not need to steal a march on them, but can let them do their utmost, and then work His point by it, and make their purposes void. What they wish to do, He calls on them to do, and to make every effort in it, all so that His glory may shine in defeating them in it. See Isaiah 8:9–10.

Crossing the Lord’s purposes will always backfire

People may have much resolution, and great undertakings. There may be much courage and eagerness, even among the weakest. They may be encouraging each other to work, and laying aside other employments so that they may carry out this work with all seriousness. Yet they are only running to their own destruction. They are “waking up,” or stirring themselves up, they are “coming up” against hilly Judea, and they are laying aside husbandry, “beating their ploughshares into swords, and their pruning hooks into spears,” when yet God is convening them for judgment (v.9–10).

War is a scourge full of evils, and an enemy to profitable callings, including husbandry. Whereas they beat their ploughshares into swords, in a time of peace, it is the opposite. Whatever is the Lord’s purpose in assembling enemies, yet the church has great difficulty in it. The church may even be surrounded on all hands with difficulties and dangers arising from it, before the situation is resolved. To say, “Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about,” implies that these enemies shall first surround the church on every hand, before God appears against them. See Revelation 10:9.

God will make use of His enemies gathering themselves, to make sure that they do not flee from His judgments. He will deal with them as delinquents brought before His tribunal, in the place which He has appointed.

Praying to the Lord is always a safe refuge

The fact of the Lord distressing the church by enemies is a call to her to pray, and to look to Him as the only one who can secure her. As she should not rest on simply being afflicted, as if that were enough to plead pity when she is not crying to God, so she should not be diffident, nor discouraged, about calling on Him, whatever her distress may be. Subjoined to this great distress is the prayer, “Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down” (v.11), indicating that the church’s refuge at that time will be prayer to the Lord.

God has plenty of both power and instruments, who are able to work for His church when she calls to Him, even if all the world was against her. “Cause thy mighty ones to come down” implies a promise that He will provide instruments armed with His power, whom He will bring to this gathering. Yet He will first put His church to intreating Him to do it for her (as in Ezekiel 36:37). It is needless to inquire who these “mighty ones” are, whether angels inflicting some extraordinary judgment, or the enemies themselves, gathered together in this manner, who He will enable to cut off one another.

It is a heathen-like sign when people come up in opposition to the church of God. That is why they are so often called “the heathen” here. We may understand it to mean only the nations, which were all heathens in Joel’s time, whatever religion they followed. Yet all those who want to suppress the church of the true God prove themselves to be heathens, especially those who would wish to crush the church of Israel now that they have turned to God after their long rejection.

The Lord wants His people to be infallibly assured that He is not at all troubled by the opposition of enemies. Although they may often be shaken with the thought of the formidable power and preparations of their enemies, yet they should collect themselves, and see God’s over-ruling hand in all of them.

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The sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, sent for Jesus urgently when their brother was ill. But by the time Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus was dead and buried. What was Jesus doing? In the heart of Martha, grief and faith were in turmoil. She was sorrowing and questioning and at the same time reaching for and clinging desperately to Jesus. As Jesus spoke to her, He interacted with her so very tenderly and led her on gently to see more and more of the comfort which God has so richly stored up in Him for His needy people. Jesus saying, “I am the resurrection and the life,” is both a foundational bedrock of support for all believers, and also something that applies personal, individual comfort in each believer’s unique circumstances. The resurrection is not a far-distant abstraction, when we realise that Christ Jesus is “the resurrection” and that He continually maintains His people in life. In the following updated extract, George Hutcheson points out the striking features of the dialogue between Jesus and Martha.

Grief is complex, even in believers

Martha was a good woman, and conscious of her loss as much as Mary was. She gets first word of Christ’s approach, and goes to meet Him, while Mary knew nothing of this, and stayed indoors.

Among those who are truly gracious, some are more tender and spiritual then others. Some are more affected with griefs, and more broken under them, than others. This may teach the godly, and especially weak and tender hearted ones, not to measure every one by themselves, for those who have real good, may have really different dispositions.

Whatever comfort or sympathy people meet with from friends in their trouble, yet comfort from Christ is also needed. Martha and Mary had comforters, yet Martha went and met Jesus, when she heard of His coming, to welcome Him as a needed guest.

However, when Martha meets Jesus, she challenges Him with her regrets that He had not come sooner and prevented her brother from dying. This weakness and infirmity broke out of her, and got a headstart of her better side. When we are in straits, we should treat with suspicion the emotions which burst out of us first of all (Psalm 116:11 & 31:22). So though we cannot justify the impassioned outbursts of the saints, yet we ought not to examine them too narrowly or censure them, because they are really only a violent temptation which tramples on grace only temporarily. After her first outburst, Martha settles a little, and corrects it with a profession of her faith that Christ, if He wished, could yet put everything right.

So, alongside her faith, Martha had her own dissatisfaction with how Christ had acted. Yet her faith prevails to the extent that she does not stay away from Him, but goes to Him. Unbelief is never deadly, as long as it does not keep you from coming to Christ. Whatever complaints you may have about Christ’s dealings, yet faith is still the conqueror, as long as you pour out all these complaints into Christ’s own bosom.

Jesus brings comfort gently

“Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again” (verse 23). He replies to her meekly. Passing over her infirmity, He comforts her with the promise that her brother would rise again.

Great are the consolations which God has laid up for His afflicted people, and He will do great things for them. It is a satisfactory and proper consolation against the death of these we love, to believe in a resurrection, in which they shall rise again. This is what Christ uses to comfort her.

Christ puts this promise only in general terms, “Thy brother shall rise again,” not mentioning the time when it would be. Even though He was going to raise her brother presently, yet simply the promise of a general resurrection is itself full of comfort (1 Thess. 4:13–14, etc.). We have no reason to stumble when we have no warrant to expect the same particular favour as Martha received, because Christ propounds this comfort in these general terms.

In Martha’s own case, Christ put it this way, partly to exercise her faith, and to let her and us see, in practice, how far short our expectations may be of what Christ will actually do for His people. She looked for the resurrection at the last day, but He was going to raise her brother almost the next minute. Partly also, He let her consolation come in bit by bit into her narrow-mouthed vessel. As the Lord’s people are allowed to believe and expect a mercy even when they cannot resolve every particular detail of how, or when, or by what means it will come to pass, so their hearts are often so shallow that they can take in mercies only in little instalments here and there.

Grief can puzzle faith

When Martha is given this promise and offer of comfort, she seems to take exception against it. Although she confesses that she believes in the resurrection and judgement of the last day, yet she seems to look on it as insufficient for her own encouragement, seeing it is something that refers to everyone, and it is a long way off (verse 24).

Because of our weakness, and our fondness for getting unique satisfaction for our own personal situations, we are ready to slight all the mercies and consolations of God, unless we get exactly what we ourselves regard as a mercy. The general resurrection is not a small comfort, and the resurrection of the just is a far better comfort than to be restored again to the toils of this life, yet Martha undervalues all that, in comparison of getting her brother back again now.

It is however not unusual to see people believing great things that are far off, yet their faith proving weak in the matter of their current trial, even though that is less difficult than what they profess to believe. Martha can believe in the resurrection of all, and of Lazarus among the rest, at the last day, yet at the same time she staggers at the possibility that he may be raised shortly. Yet the one is as difficult as the other, if not indeed more difficult.

What faith needs, faith finds in Jesus

“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die” (verses 25–26).

Although Martha believes in the resurrection, yet Christ finds it needful to instruct her better in many things about it. Believers need daily instruction from Christ, so that they will know and understand better those things which they already believe in part. Also, it is not enough that we believe in great benefits and mercies, unless we believe that they are in Christ, and seek them in Him. It is not enough that Martha believes in the resurrection, unless she believes that Christ is the resurrection and the life.

Also, we are to think of Christ, not as merely the instrument of life and resurrection to any, but as the one who principally authors it by His own power. Although many prophets and apostles raised the dead, yet it can be said by none but Christ, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Those who unite with and enjoy Christ will find in Him, and to hand, all things which they would otherwise seek far off, and possibly not find. Martha looked afar off, to a better day, for the accomplishment of Christ’s promise, but He challenges her to see it in Him, at hand, that He is the resurrection and the life, who can raise up her brother even now.

Believers walk and grow in new life

By regeneration, the children of God are put in a state of life, and this they demonstrate by their subsequent walk – by exercising the functions of spiritual life, and being living in their way. Anyone to whom Christ is “the resurrection,” is someone who lives.

Seeing that spiritual life flows only from Christ embraced by faith, it must be maintained by the same means – faith in Christ. As the dead, by believing, live, so, “he that liveth,” must “believe in me,” Jesus says. Keeping our spiritual life going is a continual resurrection, and as the same power (God’s) is employed in both begetting and maintaining this life, so the same means (faith) must continually be exercised. Clearly, if someone slips up in their walk or becomes spiritually weak, they are taking an exceedingly wrong course of action if they cast away their confidence.

The power of Christ is continually forthcoming to preserve those who believe in Him from utter decay in their spiritual life. Although they may be overtaken with some degrees of death, yet on renewing their faith, they shall be recovered. He will also preserve them from eternal death, and bodily death itself shall not extinguish the life that is begotten and maintained by faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus encourages detailed faith

Jesus poses Martha the question, “Believest thou this?” (verse 26). We should daily pose the same thing to our own hearts.

In particular, it is necessary both that we are well grounded in the faith of getting life through Christ, and that we make special application to ourselves of the general promise He makes about this. Then we won’t have to scrabble around looking for our faith when Christ calls for it.

In Martha’s answer, she assents to what Christ requires her to believe, and adds a confession of her faith about His person and offices. “She saith unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ the Son of God, which should come into the world” (verse 27). Perhaps she felt her faith was too weak to expressly grasp all that He was saying, though she assents to it, and so she deals with all that in a word, and simply professes her faith in Him, acknowledging Him to be the promised Messiah, the Son of God, and consequently, professing that she believes whatever may flow from this fact.

When our faith is weak, it will grow up to more clarity and assurance by conversing with Christ, laying open our weaknesses to Him, and receiving instructions from Him.

Some things (such as the truths about Christ’s person and offices) are fundamentals, and the rest are only the particular application of these general truths to particular cases. So, here, Martha falls back on the fact that “thou art the Christ, etc,” as her chief and all-inclusive ground of comfort.

In fact, the consequences which flow from these fundamental encouragements and promises are so many, and so full, that someone who believes the fundamentals may not even see the consequences very clearly, nor very firmly believe all that flows from them. But we can see from Martha that if you believe the general encouragements, you have much more to be refreshed and comforted with than you have so far realised. In God’s rich love, accommodating to our weakness, He draws out these general promises into particular ones, relating to our particular necessities.

Therefore, when our faith staggers in any particular moment of need, or proves weak in believing a particular promise, we should fall back on these general grounds of faith and encouragement, and hold them tight till we get more, and study the fullness that is in them, so that we may be led on to more particular confidence. That is what Martha did.

Studying Christ’s person and offices is a notable means of confirming our faith in all the promises about all the benefits to be had in Him. Martha lays hold on this, “I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God which should come into the world,” for just that reason. Carefully examining who Christ is and what He does, will make us sure both of His good will, as Mediator, and His power, as God, to do what He promises.

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