Macintosh Mackay
Hebrews 3:12. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer 17:9,10). No man had a deeper experience of the human heart than the Apostle Paul. He was a chosen vessel to the Lord; the Lord tried him and proved him and made him jealous over himself with a godly jealousy. It is he, we have every reason to believe, who here, by inspiration of the Spirit is addressing the “brethren”, and giving them this salutary caution and warning from God.
It is strange and unaccountable that, while we may be convinced of our own natural unbelief, feel the evil and guilt of it, and cry to God for deliverance from it, we may cherish unbelief at the same time. The human heart is as the chambers of imagery in the vision the prophet speaks of. After he had seen many evils, his omniscient Guide leads him onward, saying, “Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do” (Ezek 8:13). When God’s gracious command reaches the soul, offering Himself, in Christ, to be our God and Redeemer; and when the soul, acknowledging its own guilt and its need of an Almighty Saviour, turns to the Lord Jesus, then the heart feels its unbelief and its inability to trust in Christ. It seeks deliverance from the power of this unbelief, and grace to overcome it – the enlightening power of faith, showing to the soul the glory and all-sufficiency of the Saviour.
Every believer has cause to bless God that this revelation is given in such a measure as to keep the soul waiting on Him. But while God is so gracious, how unworthy are the returns made, even by believers, to His tender mercies – not to speak of the numerous backslidings which they have to lament and which hinder the growth of their souls in spiritual life and holiness. Even in their best state, and in their best frames of soul, how much remains with them of a self-righteous tendency!
The object of faith is Christ; and it is surely unbelief which causes the mind to take its comfort from any other source. But there is such unbelief in them that it will break out when they are scarcely aware of its existence. They cherish it unknown to themselves, and if God was not indeed the God
1Taken with editing from The Christian’s Daily Companion. Mackay (1793-1873). When he wrote this piece, he was Free Church minister in Dunoon.
of infinite compassion and long-suffering – if He was not their Surety in covenant, their Intercessor in heaven, their merciful High Priest – the deceitfulness of their own heart would consume them and bear down the life of godliness in their souls and reduce them, while outwardly professing the faith of Christ, to a dead formality, to an unworthy and base hypocrisy of spirit. While they complain, with good cause, of the weakness of their faith, the dimness of their views, there is a tendency in their hearts to find merit in their complaints and longings.
If that tendency to depart from the living God, as He is revealed in Christ, is permitted to have the ascendancy, and if they are permitted to build on any other foundation than that which is already laid, their souls would be lost, the waters would cover them, and they would sink beneath the stream, or be carried away by this evil current of their own unbelief and their natural pride of heart.
The soul must be continually aware of its own evil tendency, must watch unto prayer against it, must wait on the Lord for increase of grace, and for the enlightening power by the Spirit of truth, the Teacher and Comforter, to abide upon the soul. The soul needs the Spirit to show it more and more clearly and largely the glory of the Saviour; to reveal to them His covenant, to bring them within its bonds in the experience of their souls, as the only place where there is liberty, and where their souls can really prosper in the knowledge and experience of faith and hope. This tendency of the heart, as the power of evil still existing in them, ever and unweariedly seeks opportunities to operate; indeed to exercise its own unholy dominion. How great is their need to be on their watchtower and be jealous of their hearts with a godly jealousy.
But though unbelief takes this special shape with those who are made alive and follow after God, how many other shapes does it also appear in! It is so deeply rooted in the soul that, however often it is rebuked by manifestations of God’s goodness, it will spring up again and trouble them. In the times of the believer’s prosperity, whether temporal or spiritual, it will seek to turn him aside. The world will come in and claim dominion again in his affections. This will deaden the soul and darken the understanding. In times of adversity and trial, it will seek to overwhelm the soul with suspicions, doubts and fears. In the hour of temptation it will seek to divert the mind entirely from God and from every believing view of Him that the soul has ever received. Its shapes are so many, its places in the heart so hidden, its power so subtle that we may be sure that it is exercising its power whenever we are not aware of its presence and not watching against its movements and wiles. It is that principle on which the author of evil lays
hold, claims as his own, and knows to be his own in the believer’s spirit.
But the blessed, omnipotent Saviour has a stronger claim, and He has full dominion to assert His claim to the soul which He has redeemed by His own blood, and He will shortly bruise Satan under His people’s feet. This spiritual blight has destroyed many promising appearances. True, it cannot destroy the “incorruptible seed” of the kingdom, when that is sown by the great Husbandman’s hand.
Yet how are we to know whether that seed is really in us? It must be proved by the seed growing up; by our being drawn nearer and nearer to Christ, as our all and in all. “Faith which worketh by love” is the principle of spiritual life in the soul. It draws the soul to Christ; it quickens it into the obedience of sons. It makes the soul quick-sighted in detecting in itself what is contrary to Christ’s honour and glory – what dishonours Him. How great is the soul’s need to have this principle strengthened, watered, refreshed, invigorated every hour, by the Spirit’s influence and power, through the truth being applied to the heart. How near Christ brings Himself to the soul! And how necessary that He should come in and take up His abode in the heart; that being continually present there He might be honoured, and His blessed name truly known by us; that we might be devoted to His service and glory. Nothing but the Spirit’s testifying power can make the heart desire this. And when the heart does not desire it, surely it is the evil heart of unbelief that prevails in departing from the living God.
O my soul, what have you been seeking and desiring most this day? What have you chiefly been engaged in? Have I not cause to dread the power of this powerful and destructive enemy? Has it not been assailing my spirit? Have I not been ensnared by it? “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief!” Destroy the evil heart; renew it by Thy gracious power. Draw me, that I may run after Thee. “Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned.” Let not this sin rule over me; but let grace reign through righteousness, abounding toward me and setting my soul free.
The Grace of Adoption (2)1
Rev Donald MacLean
The relationship between God and Adam in innocence. We now come to the question of the relation of Adam to God in the state of innocence. Was he only a son? Or was he a servant and a son at the same time? In the light of the distinctions already drawn, the question becomes, Did the race
1A further section of a Theological Conference paper given in 1999.
of mankind, which began in Adam, begin its career under rectoral government2 or under paternal government or under both?
Creation would seem to require rule and government. Adam was created the servant of God, subject to His authority under His moral law, and liable to punishment in the case of disobedience. This relationship is universally accepted by theists, those who believe in a personal God. The real debate respects the filial relationship. Was Adam in Eden a son as well as a servant?
In the debate which took place in the nineteenth century, R S Candlish held very strongly to the view that Adam was not the created son of God in his holy state, but Thomas Crawford, who opposed him, maintained that he was both a son and a servant by creation. On this particular controversy, John Macleod in his Scottish Theology, makes the following comment: “It might be said that the leaders on the two sides disagreed at bottom in regard to their definitions and that their conflict was in the main a verbal one”. In the view of Candlish, the gospel did more than make good the loss brought upon the human race by sin. Sadly, he went on to maintain that there is virtually only one thing that can be called sonship and, as the salvation of the believer is in the Son of God, he becomes, in union with his Saviour, a sharer in the Sonship of the everlasting Son, which is a serious error.
J H Thornwell held that Adam was created a servant of God by creation, with the promise of adoption into the family on condition of his keeping the covenant of works. J L Girardeau held that Adam was created the son of God.
Father and son. When we think of the filial relationship, we must note that such a relationship must be between persons; it can never exist between things. It is also characteristic of this relationship that the second person is derived from the first. They must stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect. The person called the son must draw his life from the first. The fact of derivation is the vital point.
Crawford defines fatherhood as the origination by one intelligent person of another intelligent person in like nature to himself, and the continued support, protection and nourishment of the person originated by him, to whom he owes his being. When this definition of the paternal relation is applied to God and Adam, it can be clearly seen: (a) that God is a Person and (b) that Adam is a person. God is the originator; Adam was created in God’s image; God was his preserver and benefactor. These conditions decide the paternal relation. Therefore Adam was a son of God by creation.
The objection has been made that, if creaturehood implies in this way the fatherhood of God, trees and animals must be held to be the sons of God, seeing their being is also derived. This argument fails because trees and
2Where the master is the head and rules over those who should obey him as his servants.
animals are not persons. The argument set forth above does not proceed from creaturehood in general to sonship, but from a particular sort of creaturehood to sonship as outlined. The final authority to determine this matter lies in the Word of God.
In both Testaments, over and over again, God is spoken of as a father, and a people is spoken of as the children of God. A distinction, however, must be made between the special sonship of believers and the general sonship of men. Believers are the children of God by adoption and all that this involves. This point will be dealt with later in the paper. What I am now concerned with is the question whether Scripture teaches that God is in any sense the father of all men.
Scripture evidence. In Luke 3 we have a list of sonships and fatherhoods in an ascending line from Jesus to Adam. In using the precise formula which he had used in all other cases, Luke speaks of “Adam, who was the son of God”. This record shows that the same relation which Seth sustained to Adam, Adam sustained to God. If it is maintained that Adam was the father of Seth, it must be affirmed on precisely the same grounds that God was the father of Adam. The fact that Adam had his derivation from God by creation, while Seth had his derivation from Adam by generation, does not affect the argument for one moment, unless it can be shown that a creature cannot be constituted the son of God by creation. It has already been shown that this is not only possible but it is a fact.
Further light is given on this particular point by the fact that the sonship of believers is constituted by regeneration, which is called a new creation. Another proof of man’s sonship by creation is in Paul’s address at Mars’ hill, where Paul taught that man is “the offspring of God” (Acts 17:28-29). Webb well says, “A brute ancestry was denied and a Divine paternity was affirmed”.
A further argument for man’s special sonship, as distinguished from the special sonship of believers, is founded on the family likeness between God and man. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him.” This conclusion is strengthened by the doctrine of regeneration. The features of the regenerate sonship are knowledge, righteousness and holiness (Col 3:10, Eph 4:24). But Adam was first created with these very features. Since they evidence the sonship of the new creation, should they not just as certainly show the sonship of the first creation? While the two passages of Scripture already mentioned provide convincing evidence of the sonship of Adam and the consequent fact that it is the same God who is the Father of the human family, there are other passages of Scripture which point in the same direction. I adduce one or two of them to demonstrate that the Word of God recognises a sonship by creation:
(1.) “Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us?” (Mal 2:10) “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is Mine honour? And if I be a master, where is My fear?” (Mal 1:6). (2.) “Doubtless Thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: Thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer” (Is 63:16). (3.) “But now, O Lord, Thou art our father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand” (Is 64:8). “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto Me, My Father, Thou art the guide of my youth?” (Jer 3:4). (4.) In Heb 12:9 we read of a distinction drawn between the fathers of our flesh and the “Father of spirits”. John Owen’s comment on this is very suggestive: “Whereas the Apostle here distributes our nature into its two essential parts, the flesh and the spirit, it is evident that, by the spirit, the rational soul is intended. For though the flesh also be a creation of God, yet [what is] natural is used as a means of its production, but the soul is immediately created and infused, having no other father but God Himself.”
In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Saviour brings before us a father and two sons. One of these sons leaves home and becomes a moral wreck. Eventually he repents and returns home to receive a paternal reception and welcome. These two sons are generally taken to be representative of the publicans and Pharisees. Webb is of the opinion that the main point and pathos of the parable is the fact that the two sons were in the house of their father. The dogmatic import of the parable is in part at least the original and created sonship of man. “It is”, he says, “the picture of the fall and rise of a son of God.” Although this parable is misused by those who favour a false view of the fatherhood of God, this should not prevent us making a proper use of it.
In the light of these texts and the views set forth in connection with them, we are entitled to conclude that Adam, and the human race in him, sustained primarily two relations to God – the servile and the filial. Being the creature of God, he was set under God’s moral government as a servant to be dealt with according to the principles of retributive justice; at the same time, he was placed under the moral discipline of the house of God as a Father, to be dealt with according to the dictates of fatherly affection. Both relations were probationary and changeable.
Failing in the tests which were imposed, man was doomed to fall as a servant under God’s magisterial displeasure, and as a son under God’s fatherly displeasure. Establishment as a servant on the one hand, and in his sonship on the other, were held out to him as a reward for fidelity to his engagements. But by his sin, all was lost.
Persevering in Weakness1
David Brainerd
Tuesday, 30 April 1744. Was scarcely able to walk about and was obliged to betake myself to bed much of the day. I spent the time in a very solitary manner, being neither able to read, meditate, nor pray, and had none to converse with in that wilderness. O how heavily does time pass away, when I can do nothing to any good purpose, but seem obliged to trifle away precious time! But of late I have seen it my duty to divert myself by all lawful means, that I may be fit, at least some small part of my time, to labour for God. And here is the difference between my present diversions and those I once pursued when in a natural state. I then delighted in them to the neglect of God, and drew my highest satisfaction from them; now I use them as means to help me in living to God, fixedly delighting in Him and not in them, drawing my highest satisfaction from Him. Then they were my all; now they are only means leading to my All. And those things that are the greatest diversion, when pursued with this view, do not tend to hinder but promote my spirituality; and I see now, more than ever, that they are absolutely necessary.
Wednesday, May 1. Was not able to sit up more than half the day, and yet had such renewals of strength sometimes that I was able to write a little on a divine subject. Was grieved that I could no more live to God. In the evening, had some nearness and intenseness in secret prayer.
Thursday, May 2. In the evening, being a little better in health, I walked into the woods, and enjoyed a season of meditation and prayer. My thoughts ran upon Psalm 17:15, “I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness”. It was indeed a precious text to me, and I longed to preach to the whole world; my thoughts were exceeding clear, and my soul was refreshed. Blessed be the Lord that in my recent and present weakness, now for many days together, my mind is not gloomy as at some other times.
Friday, May 3. Felt a little vigour of body and mind in the morning; had some freedom and fervency in prayer. Visited and spent some time with my Indians. In the evening, again retiring into the woods, I enjoyed some sweet meditations on Isaiah 53:10, “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him”.
Tuesday, May 7. Spent the day chiefly in making preparation for a journey into the wilderness. Was still weak, and concerned how I should perform so difficult a journey. Engaged in prayer for the divine blessing, direction and
1An extract from The Diary of David Brainerd. Brainerd (1718-47) was the godly missionary to the Native Americans who suffered much from tuberculosis but persevered in his work until it became impossible for him to continue.
protection in my intended journey; but lacked bodily strength to spend the day in fasting and supplication.