Believing What God Says by W S Plumer

Some “remarks” by Plumer on Romans 4:20-21, taken with editing from his Commentary on Romans. Plumer (1802-80) was a minister, and later a professor at, successively, two theological seminaries.

1. The wisest thing any mortal can do is, without questioning or hesitation, to believe everything God has spoken. Chrysostom: “From the case of Abraham we learn that, if God promises even countless impossibilities, and he that hears does not receive them, it is not the nature of the things that is to blame but the unreasonableness of him who does not receive them”. Even Balaam’s theology carried him so far as to say, “God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent; hath he said, and shall He not do it? Or hath He spoken and shall He not make it good?” (Num 23:19).

If anyone should think that the days are past when a strong faith is necessary, he is wholly mistaken. Think of someone who has always led a life of ungodliness. At last his soul is awakened from its sleep of death. He sees that there is a God who governs the world by a law that is holy, just and good; that he himself has transgressed against that law in times and ways innumerable. His iniquities take hold of him like armed men and are dragging him to the prison of despair.

Go to him and attempt to persuade him to exercise faith in the promises God has made to those who have sinned as he has done, and what a task you have on hand! Tell him of God’s spotless rectitude, and he says, I know it; I have sinned against it; I am sadly contrary to it. Point him to God’s veracity, the great pillar of hope, and he rejoins, That is even so, but the same unfailing truth has said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die”. Exhort him to fix his steadfast eye on God’s compassion expressed in the cross of Christ, and he says, God is merciful, but I have long slighted and abused His grace and been cold to His loving kindness. Tell him of the penitent thief, converted on the cross, and he reminds you that his case was extraordinary, and that inspiration also tells us that his companion in crime died in his sins. Hold up before him Paul, that great pattern of mercy, and he says, Yes, but his great sins were committed ignorantly in unbelief, but I have sinned against light, vows and convictions.

To him it looks as if everything in God is against him, for the saving view of divine truth has not yet been revealed to him. All within him is dark. His history is black with offences. His prospects are dismal. He is sinking into sadness bordering on despair. To him it looks as if everything is against him. Everything in God is, to his mind, tremendous. He cannot persuade himself that Jehovah looks, or ever can look, on him but as an enemy, an outcast from the hopes of the righteous. He does not see how he, who is accustomed to do evil, shall ever learn to do well. He is fearfully held by the cords of his sins. Of the renewal of his fallen nature he has no experience and no hope.

So far is he gone in the downward road of rebellion and remorse that it is clear as day that, if he shall ever have peace in believing, it must be by a faith which is the gift of God. No human persuasion can ever fetch him up from the depths into which he has fallen. It must be given him from above to believe in the great sacrifice of Calvary, and there in the cross of Christ see all the divine attributes harmonising in his salvation. Even then his faith may be weak, compared with that of others, compared with what it shall be, but it is precious faith and a mighty principle that can change his entire relations to all things.

1. Such faith glorifies God. It puts all honour on His grace, His power, His wisdom, His faithfulness. Chrysostom: “The very privilege of glorifying God would itself be a glory”. This is the highest aim of unfallen angels and redeemed men. It is the highest destiny of any creature to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.

2. But let us not confound the astonishment of true faith with the perplexity of unbelief. The latter is a vice; the former is a virtue. The pious Jews released from Babylon were “like them that dream”. Peter released from prison “wist not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision”. Calvin: “Abraham asked indeed how it could come to pass, but that was the asking of one astonished; as the case was with the Virgin Mary, when she inquired of the angel how that could be which he had announced”. Pious wonder will never cease. Calvin: “No greater honour can be given to God than by faith to seal His truth; as, on the other hand, no greater dishonour can be done to Him than to refuse His offered favour or to discredit His Word”. We may wonder; we must not disbelieve.

3. True faith obeys as well as trusts. We must walk in the steps of believers. We must act as if all God has spoken is true. It is in vain to say in words, We trust, and to say by deeds, We have no confidence. Concerning all the promises made to him and the commandments given him, Abraham behaved as if he believed every word. Our weakness cannot restrain God’s operations. Let our lives not prove that our faith is heartless.

4. Genuine and strong faith begets an undoubting persuasion of all that God promises, however new and difficult our circumstances may be. Abraham could look back to no example where God had worked such wonders as were promised to him. He looked at himself and he was as good as dead. He looked at Sarah and she seemed far too old to be a mother, and besides she had always been barren; yet he was fully persuaded that what God had promised he would perform. God knows all causes and hindrances and governs them, and so He is never defeated, never nonplussed.