It goes back to the promises God made to the patriarchs; and it will not end until all can join in Paul’s final paean of praise. “O the depths of the riches of both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! . . . Of him, and through him, and unto him are all things. To him be the glory forever.” Paul glimpses the whole process; that is what we call revelation, or inspiration or some such word.
Apart from that, if you slice through the process of some intermediate point, you will not understand it. Elijah did not understand it; “Lord they have killed the prophets, they have torn down the altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” In other words, “it’s all up; God you have failed.” But even Elijah was wrong (until he was taught better). It is not merely that he got the statistics wrong (not 1 but 7,000, a mere error of 700,000 percent). He had not grasped the fact that God was working through a remnant, and if the remnant had consisted not of 7,000 but of only 1, God would still have worked through it.
The story is a long one, and though at any given point, such as perhaps today, it may seem that wrath is doing a great deal better than mercy, that does not mean that mercy will not win in the end. A special feature of this (which comes out in our lesson for today) is that God can and does use Pharaoh, who will serve the purpose of God in a more distinguished way than the great many of anonymous Israelites when God in his mercy delivered them from bondage in Egypt. Because Pharaoh is what God makes him, God’s power is manifested and his name is published abroad. Pharaoh becomes an instrument of the Gospel. God’s purpose runs through mysterious channels.
The high point of this is that in the story of God’s dealing with his human creation, disobedience plays a positive role; without it, mercy could not be mercy. It could only be approval. In no other way could God prove his love. “Scarcely for a righteous person will anyone dare to die. . . . God commends his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It is Augustine’s felix culpa. In no other context can the full extent of God’s love be recognized.
And as we see fully in chapter 11, God’s mercy is for all who will have it as mercy; who will accept it, as Wesley said, on God’s terms. As long as I am viewing my willing and running as ground on which I deserve God’s favor, so long I do not get it. When I recognize that I deserve nothing from him, the fullness of his mercy is poured out. Paul works this out on a huge canvas, in the story of Jew and Gentile; it is just as true in the miniature of a single human life. In fact, this apparently forbidding verse, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” is in fact the Gospel.
THE GOSPEL
“It is not of him that runs, or the one who wills, but of God who has mercy.” The trouble is I am not very good at willing, at reaching a decision, and sticking to it through thick and thin, nor very good at running. It is as if one said to me (Paul can use the image, so can I), “Would you like an Olympic Gold Medal? You can have one. All you need to do is go out on the track there, and run a race faster than all these other fellows.” The process is indeed a simple one, the only problem is, I can’t run fast enough.
I do not need to explain my meaning. I am not good enough to win God’s medal, and if my standing with God depends on my virtue, my religiousness, shaky is hardly the word for it. It does not. It depends on the mercy of a merciful God, the God who is known in Christ as the friend of tax collectors and sinners. So there is hope, good news for me. Not only that, but I am set free, free to run in my own way. If my only hope is to go out and beat three long-legged fellows in the Olympic stadium, or even to get up into their class, I shall stay at home; it isn’t worth trying. But now I know that, as I am, I have God’s mercy, I can and I will go out and run. I cannot serve him as his great ones do, certainly I cannot serve him well enough to deserve a prize. But I will go out and use for him the one talent which he entrusted to me.
There is one thing more to say. It is an unfair world, isn’t it? Someone here is saying so, maybe with bitterness. This is where the unfairness of a fallen world is put in its place. It never looked more unfair than it did at Calvary, and Calvary is the focal point of God’s mercy.
Though waves and storms go o’er my head,Though strength, and health, and friends be gone,Though joys be withered all and dead,Though every comfort be withdrawn,On this my steadfast soul relies,Father, Thy mercy never dies. (J. A. Rothe, translated into English by J. Wesley, 1740)
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“I BELIEVE”—Romans 10.8–10
[Preached twenty-two times from 7/9/44 at Bondgate Darlington to 2/10/85 at Cassop]
It is some little time since I have attempted a series of sermons and I am proposing to do so again now, beginning this morning and continuing on for the next four Sunday mornings. I hope to preach on five of the cardinal words in the Creed. I wish we knew it better than we do and used it more. You know well enough I’m a fairly good Methodist, and I would not barter Charles Wesley’s hymns for anything in Christendom, but I must confess a certain amount of envy of those Christians who recite the Creed (in one form or another) in their services. Some people don’t like the Creeds, I love them. And that is not because I’ve had the privilege of teaching the history of the Creeds for three years at Cambridge. It is because the Creeds are the battle song of the Church. The Creeds are very inadequately used when I read them in the Greek or Latin with a small group of persons inside college walls. I should like to march along the High Row with a great crowd of people singing the Creed. That would be something like a proper use of the Creeds. For those Creeds are the succinct statement of the facts upon which our Christian life vests.
However, enough of generalities. I propose tonight simply to deal with the fundamental words “I believe.” I make no apology for continually returning to the theme of faith. It is the most fundamental and also the most misunderstood thing in Christianity, and the old Reformation watchword, “by faith alone,” words which in these days we badly need to recover, and which, God be praised, some of our Church leaders are recovering. What may we learn of faith from St. Paul?
WITH THE HEART A PERSON BELIEVES UNTO RIGHTEOUSNESS
There are a number of things to be said here. Firstly, faith is a thing of the heart. Let that not be misunderstood. In the Bible, as in most ancient literature, the heart does not mean quite what it means to us. In our conventional language one thinks with the head and feels with the heart. Roughly speaking the ancients put these things a step lower—so a person thinks with his heart (“as a person thinks in his heart, so he is”). The thought of the heart really means the disposition of the whole person. And this leads us to the important fact that in the field of Christian faith (as in a great deal else), thinking and feeling ought not to be separated. A faith that is purely intellectual is stunted and unfruitful. A faith that is mere feeling is flabby and spineless. Neither is an adequate Christian faith. There are some of you, I am sure, to whom I ought to say ‘Put more thought into your faith. Don’t be afraid to do so, and it will be all the better for you and for others.’
I recently came across in Charles Kingsley’s Life a tale of an incident at Bonn.7 There were two processions of peasants, who had marched to the top of Peter’s mountain. One was composed of vinedressers who were intending to return thanks for sunshine and to pray for its continuance. The others from a corn district were wanting the drought to cease, and the rain to fall. Each were eager to get possession of the shrine of St. Peter’s chapel before the other, to secure the saints good offices, so they come to blows with fists and sticks. A little more thought with our faith would not merely be useful to us, but would also rectify our relations with our neighbors.
It is equally a problem that there are some of you, to whom I ought to say, “put more feeling into your faith.” Probably I ought to say that to myself, for if there is anyone scared of emotion,
