I hope you are sustained by the Lord in a measure of comfort as regards your bodily health, and that as regards your spiritual condition you can say: To whom shall I go but unto Thee; for “Thou hast the words of eternal life”? And we know “and are sure that Thou art [the] Christ, the Son of the living God”. Saving faith casts its anchor in Christ Jesus and Him crucified, as He is held forth in God’s Word. It does this, not only when God’s favour is enjoyed by the soul, but when the soul’s cry is: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” It is like Gad: “A troop shall overcome him; but he shall overcome at last”.
Faith, as set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11 throughout, shows its strength (as being God’s gift) in overcoming all manner of trials. Nowhere does it appear more vigorous than in face of death, as appears in the cases of Jacob and Joseph. No wonder that it is written: “By it the elders obtained a good report”. It is defined in The Shorter Catechism: “Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation, as He is offered to us in the gospel”.
The first effect of it is: “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ . . . by whom we have now received the atonement”. The Holy Ghost, in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Romans, shows that the experiences of the justified are not happy, because of sin in themselves – the flesh warring against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh – but concludes that “there is . . . now no condemnation to them [who] are in Christ Jesus”, notwithstanding the inward wretchedness of which they complain. “Great”, says the Holy Ghost, “is the mystery of godliness . . .”
You are very often in my thoughts, such as they are, and I pray that the Lord may uphold, comfort, and strengthen you to the end and then receive you into His eternal kingdom and glory with exceeding joy. I hope all your family at home and abroad are well. We are, in the Lord’s mercy and goodness in our usual health, for which great mercy we should be thankful; but alas, that is easier said than done!
This is the first of a series of letters written to John Maciver of Scoraig, in Wester Ross, first printed in the issue of The Free Presbyterian Magazine* for February 1938. A footnote describes him as “a gracious man who lived to the patriarchal age of over 100 years”.