Category: Quotations

Principal Fairbairn speaks of the connection between Noah’s Flood and Christian baptism:

In the personal experience of believers, as symbolized in that ordinance, there is a re-enacting substantially of what took place in the outward theatre of the world by means of the deluge. “The like figure whereunto (literally, the antitype to which, viz., Noah’s salvation by water in the ark) even baptism doth also now save us; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet. iii. 21) Like the Apostle’s delineations generally, the passage briefly indicates, rather than explicitly unfolds, the truths connected with the subject. Yet, on a slight consideration of it, we readily perceive, that, with profound discernment, it elicits from the ordinance of baptism, as spiritually understood and applied, the same fundamental elements, discovers there the same twofold process, which appeared so strikingly in the case of Noah. Here also there is a salvation reaching its accomplishment by means of a destruction “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh” not so superficial a riddance of evil, but one of a more important and vital character, bringing “the answer of a good conscience,” or the deliverance of the soul from the guilt and power of iniquity. The water of baptism let the subject be plunged in it ever so deep, or sprinkled ever so much can no more of itself save him than the water of the deluge could have saved Noah, apart from the faith he possessed, and the preparation it led him to make in constructing and entering into the ark. It was because he held and exercised such faith, that the deluge brought salvation to Noah, while it overwhelmed others in destruction. So is it in baptism, when received in a spirit of faith. There is in this also the putting off of the old man of corruption crucifying it together with Christ, and at the same time a rising through the resurrection of Christ to the new and heavenly life, which satisfies the demands of a pure and enlightened conscience. So that the really baptized soul is one in which there has been a killing and a making alive, a breaking up and destroying of the root of corrupt nature, and planting in its stead the seed of a divine nature, to spring, and grow, and bring forth fruit to perfection. In the microcosm of the individual believer, there is the perishing of an old world of sin and death, and the establishment of a new world of righteousness and life everlasting.
Such is the proper idea of Christian baptism, and such would be the practical result were the idea fully realized in the experience of the baptized. But this is so far from being the case, that even the idea is apt to suffer in people’s minds from the conscious imperfections of their experience. And it might help to check such a tendency; it might, at least, be of service in enabling them to keep themselves well informed as to what should be, if they looked occasionally to what actually was, in the outward pattern of these spiritual things, given in the times of Noah. Are you disinclined, we might say to them, to have the axe so unsparingly applied to the old man of corruption? Think, for your warning, how God spared not the old world, but sent its mass of impurity headlong into the gulph of perdition. Seems it a task too formidable, and likely to prove hopeless in the accomplishment, to maintain your ground against the powers of evil in the world? Think again, for your encouragement, how impotent the giants of wickedness were of old to defeat the counsels of God, or prevail over those who held fast their confidence in His word; with all their numbers and their might, they sunk like lead in the waters, while the little household of faith rode secure in the midst of them. Or does it appear strange, at times perhaps incredible, to your mind, that you should be made the subject of a work which requires for its accomplishment the peculiar perfections of Godhead, while others are left entire strangers to it, and even find the word of God, the chosen instrument for effecting it, the occasion of wrath and condemnation to their souls? Remember “the few, the eight souls” of Noah’s family, alone preserved amid the wreck and desolation of a whole world: preserved, too, by faith in a word of God, which carried in its bosom the doom of myriads of their fellow-creatures, and so, finding that which was to others a minister of condemnation, a source of peace and safety to them. Rest assured, that as God Himself remains the same through all generations, so His work for the good of men is essentially the same also ; and it ever must be His design and purpose, that Noah’s faith and salvation should be perpetually renewing themselves in the hidden life and experience of those who are preparing for the habitations of glory.

Typology of Scripture V.1, P.2, C.6, S.2

John Calvin, Commentary on Colossians 2:9,10

Further, when he says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, he means simply, that God is wholly found in him, so that he who is not contented with Christ alone, desires something better and more excellent than God. The sum is this, that God has manifested himself to us fully and perfectly in Christ.
(…)
And ye are complete in him. He adds, that this perfect essence of Deity, which is in Christ, is profitable to us in this respect, that we are also perfect in him. �As to God�s dwelling wholly in Christ, it is in order that we, having obtained him, may posses in him an entire perfection.� Those, therefore, who do not rest satisfied with Christ alone, do injury to God in two ways, for besides detracting from the glory of God, by desiring something above his perfection, they are also ungrateful, inasmuch as they seek elsewhere what they already have in Christ. Paul, however, does not mean that the perfection of Christ is transfused into us, but that there are in him resources from which we may be filled, that nothing may be wanting to us.

Leo the �Great, Letter XXVIII, to Flavian (the Tome)

He took the form of a slave�without stain of sin, increasing the human and not diminishing the divine:� because that emptying of Himself whereby the Invisible made Himself visible and, Creator and�Lord�of all things though He be, wished to be a mortal, was the bending down�of pity, not the failing of power.� Accordingly He who while remaining in the form of�God�made man, was also made man in the form of a slave.� For both natures retain their own proper character without loss:� and as the form of�God�did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair the form of�God.

John Calvin, Commentary on Titus 3:4

Goodness and love. He has with propriety assigned the first rank to �goodness,� which prompts God to love us; for God will never find in us anything which he ought to love, but he loves us because he is good and merciful. Besides, although he testifies his goodness and love to all, yet we know it by faith only, when he declares himself to be our Father in Christ. Before Paul was called to the faith of Christ, he enjoyed innumerable gifts of God, which might have given him a taste of God�s fatherly kindness; he had been educated, from his infancy, in the doctrine of the law; yet he wanders in darkness, so as not to perceive the goodness of God, till the Spirit enlightened his mind, and till Christ came forth as the witness and pledge of the grace of God the Father, from which, but for him, we are all excluded Thus he means that the kindness of God is not revealed and known but by the light of faith.

Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament, p.7, speaking of Romans 8 says:

This is a longing, a prayer, a beseeching of God that only the redeemed subject of religion can experience. The groaning of the irrational creature is left far behind by it. The Christian alone can experience it and does experience it with such intensity that it became to Paul in itself a prophecy of fulfillment. It is like the craving hunger that knows there must be bread somewhere.

Is anyone else reminded of C.S. Lewis?

The Reformed Orthodox were very clear that faith is justifying only because it is receptive of Christ. Heinrich Heppe collects evidence of this in his, Reformed Dogmatics, pp.553 and 554:

The condition to which the attribution of Christ’s righteousness is attached is not the performance of a work (for by works fallen man can merit nothing nor satisfy God in any way), but only faith in Christ and his work of redemption. But this faith effects justification not as a meritorious work or as the root of good works, but purely as a causa instrumentalis, not for one moment as a condition fulfillable by man,�for a condition of justification can only be laid down by the law, but not by free grace, and the single real condition of justification is perfect obedience to the law.

Mastricht (VI, vi, 14): “It is worth while inquiring how faith inflows into justification.�(1) It does not do so as the meritorious cause of it.�Nor (2) because of faith;�but we are justified through faith”.

Witsius (III, viii, 52): “Nor does it seem to me an accurate statement, that faith is the condition which the gospel demands of us, that we may be held righteous and innocent with God. Strictly speaking the condition of justification is nothing but perfect obedience. � This the law enacted. Nor did the gospel substitute another; it teaches that the law has been satisfied by our sponsor Christ. It is at once the duty of faith to accept and by accepting to make its own satisfaction offered for it.”

Crocius 1223: “So not only are those works excluded from the act of justification, which are emitted by a man before faith and conversion, but also those which proceed from faith.”

Burmann (VI, v, 25): “Indeed faith is so opposed to works in this matter that it even excludes itself, if it is considered as a work. Although regarded by itself it is a work, in justification it is not regarded after this manner but purely as an instrumental work.”

Bucan (XXXI, 34): “In what sense are we said to be justified by faith? It is not regarded in its own intrinsic dignity or merit, nor as a work or a new quality in us, nor in its force and efficacy minus love; nor because it has love added to it or works through love; nor because faith imparts the Spirit of Christ, by whom the believer is rendered just because we are bidden seek righteousness not in ourselves but in Christ; but because it seeks and embraces the righteousness offered in the Gospel Rom. 1:16,17. As regards justification faith is a purely passive thing, bringing nothing of ours to conciliate God, but receiving from Christ what we lack.”

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Faith is not a meritorious cause of justification; faith does not meet the demands of the law; faith does not justify because it produces good works, nor do the good works that proceed from faith play any role in justification. The only reason we are justified by faith is that faith apprehends Christ our righteousness.