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https://biblehub.com/sermons/auth/maclaren/paul_to_the_corinthians.htm
"By the will of God" is at once an assertion of Divine authority, a declaration of independence, and a lowly disclaimer of individual merit. The weight he expected to be attached to his words was to be due entirely to their Divine origin. Never mind the cracked pipe through which the Divine Breath makes music, but listen to the music.
THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER HERE SET FORTH. "Saints" — a word that has been woefully misapplied. The Church has given it as a "special honour" to a few, and decorated with it mainly the possessors of a false ideal of sanctity. The world uses it with a sarcastic intonation, as if it implied loud professions and small performances.
1. Saints are not people living in cloisters, but men and women immersed in the vulgar work of everyday life. The root idea of the word is not "moral purity", but separation to God. Consecration to Him is the root FROM which the white flower of purity springs. We CANNOT purify ourselves, but we CAN yield ourselves to God, and the purity WILL come.
2. To thus devote ourselves is our solemn obligation, and unless we do we are not Christians. The TRUE consecration is the surrender of the will, and its ONE motive is drawn from the Love and devotion of Christ to US. All consecration rests on the faith of Christ's sacrifice.
3. And if, drawn by the great Love of Christ, we give ourselves away to God in Him, then He gives Himself to us.
Grace means —
(1) Love in [free & willing] exercise to those who are "below" the lover [in rank, status, power, circumstance, etc.] or who "deserve" something else [due to some sin marking them for punishment and exile, or some deeper corruption of character deeming them as "unworthy" of any positive treatment, either as judgment of their state, or for fear that they will merely abuse any such gifts given– or even their giver].
(2) The gifts which such love bestows [without calculating whether or not they are "deserved", and without requiring recognition or even gratitude in response]
(3) The effects of those gifts in the beauties of character and conduct developed in the receivers. [WHICH IS PRECISELY WHY GOD COMMANDS US TO "LOVE OUR ENEMIES"– SUCH GRACIOUS LOVE LITERALLY TRANSFORMS HEARTS, BECAUSE IT IS GOD'S OWN LOVE!!!]
So here are invoked the love and gentleness of the Father; and next the outcome of that Love– which never visits the soul empty handed– in all varied spiritual gifts; and, as a last RESULT [OF the RECEPTION of that Love and its Gifts, a result effectively made INEVITABLE by the very NATURE & DESIGN of Grace, and its Presence in a soul, for God cannot touch anything and that thing remain unchanged], every beauty of heart, mind, and temper which can adorn the character and refine a man into the likeness of God.
Peace comes after grace. For tranquillity of soul we must go to God, and He gives it BY giving us His Love and its Gifts. [Now,] There must be first peace WITH God that there MAY be peace FROM God. [This peace "WITH" God is given AS a grace, totally undeserved and poured out even on the most wretched and lowly of all men, a free and priceless Gift received] when we have been won from our alienation and enmity by [revelation of, and faith in,] the Power of the Cross [which is the perfect & full exhibition of God's Love and Mercy, and the Fountain OF all grace. BY that Life-Giving Divine Sacrifice– in which God was wholeheartedly involved IN His Triune Nature– we learn] to know that God is our Lover, Friend, and Father. [This is how RICH the theology of the Cross is, itself an infinite well of wisdom, an eternal font of Living Water for all thirsty souls. As we come to the Cross, again & again, we are enabled by its grace to embrace it with reciprocal love, and it is in that love– gained through familiarity with the Cross upon which it is most clearly illustrated– that we are blessed with such an experiential knowledge of God's Character, a knowledge that is ever deepening and never exhausted. Then] we shall possess the peace ["FROM" God, the peace of Christ and not of the world– the peace] of those whose hearts have found their home; the peace of spirits no longer at war within, [for] conscience and choice [are no longer] tearing them asunder in their strife; [because Christ's peace is] the peace of obedience, which banishes the disturbance of self-will; the peace of security shaken by no fears; the peace of a sure future across the brightness of which no shadows of sorrow nor mists of uncertainty can fall; the peace of a heart in amity with all mankind. So, living in peace, we shall lay ourselves down and die in peace, and enter "that country afar beyond the stars" where "grows the flower of peace."
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https://biblehub.com/commentaries/maclaren/2_corinthians/1.htm
"For as many as are promises of God, in Him are the "Yes", and through Him the "Amen", for glory to God through us."
"For all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him, our “Amen” is spoken to the glory of God."
...the Apostle means two different things by the ‘yea’ and the ‘amen’ . The one is God’s voice, the other is man’s. The one has to do with the certainty OF the divine revelation, the other has to do with the certitude of our faith IN the revelation.
When God speaks IN Christ, He confirms everything that He has said before, and when we listen to God speaking in Christ, our lips are, THROUGH Christ, opened to utter our assenting ‘Amen’ to His great promises.
So, then, we have the double form of our Lord’s work, covering the whole ground of His relations to man, set forth in these two clauses, in the one of which God’s confirmation of His past revelations by Jesus Christ is treated of, and in the other of which the full and confident assent which men may give to that revelation is set before us.
I deal, then, with these two points– God’s certainties IN Christ, and man’s certitudes THROUGH Christ.
...the original reference of the text is to the whole series of great promises given in the Old Testament. These, says Paul, are [ALL] sealed and confirmed to men by the revelation of, and work of, Jesus Christ...
...think briefly about some of the things that are made for us indubitably certain in Jesus Christ... first of all, there is the certainty about God’s Heart. Everywhere else we have only peradventures, hopes, fears, guesses more or less doubtful, and roundabout inferences as to His disposition and attitude towards us... The only means by which, indubitably, as a matter of demonstration, men can be sure that God in the heavens has a Heart of Love towards them is by Jesus Christ.
For consider what will make us sure of that: Nothing but facts; words are of little use, arguments are of little use. A revelation, however precious, which simply says to us, ‘God is Love,’ is not sufficient for our need. We want to SEE love in operation if we are to be sure of it, and the only demonstration of the Love of God is to WITNESS the Love of God in actual working. And you get it– where? On the Cross of Jesus Christ. I do not believe that anything else irrefragably establishes the fact for the yearning hearts of us poor men who want love, and yet cannot grope our way in [to find it] amidst the [impenetrable] mysteries and the [obscuring] clouds in Providence and nature, except [through] this= ’Herein is Love: not that we loved God [for truly we didn't], but that He loved us [totally, truly, and despite everything], and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins [as the necessary outpouring of, and the tangible, undeniable, demonstrated and factual proof of, that eternal & ineffable Love].’
"God AS Love" is ‘our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt,’ and the only way to make absolutely certain of the fact that His Heart IS full of mercy to us is to look upon Him as He stands revealed to us– not merely in the Words of Christ, for, precious as they are, these are the smallest part of His revelation, but in the Life and in the Death which OPEN for us the Heart of God. Remember what He said Himself: Not ‘He who hath listened to Me, doth understand the Father,’ but ‘He that hath SEEN Me hath SEEN the Father.’ ‘In Him is "Yes",’ and the hopes and shadowy fore-revelations of the loving Heart of God are confirmed by the FACT of His Life and Death. God establishes– not ‘commends’ as our translation has it– ‘His Love towards us in that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ DIED for us.’
Further, in Him we have the CERTAINTY of pardon. Every deep heart-experience amongst men has felt the necessity of having a clear certainty and knowledge about forgiveness. Men do not feel it always.
A man can skate over the surface of the great deeps that [always] lie beneath [even] the most frivolous life, and may suppose, in his superficial [worldly, secular, materialistic, atheistic] way of looking at things, that there is "no need" for any definite teaching about sin [having either an amoral or relativistic perspective] and the mode of dealing with it [as it is a "non-issue" to him, and so he is ignorant of, or blind/ numb to, the just & direct consequences of sin– therefore there is "nothing to manage"]. But once [God, by whatever means, does] bring that man face to face, in a quiet hour [or one of crisis, either of which reveals and/or stirs up the very depths he has been denying], with the FACTS of his life [as a mortal, a human, in an orderly & intentional universe, existing neither as an "accident/ chance" nor as a "god into himself", but as a specifically and purposefully created being, his existence and purpose mutually & elegantly entwined with that of all the cosmos, yet alone of all creatures created with an eternal soul destined for an eternal afterlife, and therefore having a profound responsibility for and infinite weight to even his tiny and brief time on earth] and of a Divine Law [that orders all that exists for all time, a transcendent Truth & Goodness & Beauty, all blossoming from the Heart of Love that IS the Triune God, and therefore existing as the absolute incontrovertible moral standard against which all freewill actions are judged and weighed– here lies both the definition and the horror of sin, in that it is an affront and offense to Love itself, a rejection of Truth and therefore of Reality, making sin a void, a negation, a non-being, an untruth and an unreality– sin as the very nature of Death], and all that superficial ignoring of evil in himself [by trying to eliminate morality "as a concept" altogether, or by arrogantly justifying all he does and/or actively redefining his vices as virtues], and of [ignoring and/or denying] the dread of punishment and consequences [by means of denying the reality of a transcendent moral standard, which implies not only a solemn and inescapable responsibility to adhere to it, AS a Law, but also of a LawGIVER, of a JUDGE to Whom all mortals must answer with no hope of excuse or exception], passes away.
I am sure of this, that no religion will ever go far and last long and work mightily, and lay a sovereign hand upon human life, which has not a most plain and decisive message to preach in reference to PARDON [– a message which, notably, must be absent in all religions that deny any NEED of pardon, by denying any reality of objective morality and therefore of any possible offense against it, or of transgression of some judicial cosmic standard, of some breach of divine law, some betrayal of the innate conviction that there IS a Judge and Lawgiver outside oneself. "Pardon" necessitates that another party has been definitively harmed, and restitution is required of you, and BY causing such harm you are guilty of acting in a way contrary to the very essence of life itself, and therefore have entered into the power of death, UNLESS you are granted LEGAL "pardon" by Whoever is in charge OF impartially & perfectly administering cosmic justice– God Himself. Mortals have no actual power to pardon, for we are not in any position of moral authority. All WE can rightly do is show mercy– to forgive personal offense, lest we be judged ourselves for "deciding" a condemnatory moral "sentence" on a fellow creature, as if we were the rightful Judge]. And I am sure of this, that one reason for the comparative feebleness of much so-called Christian teaching in this generation is just that the deepest needs of a man’s conscience are not met by it. In a religion on which the whole spirit of a man may rest itself, there must be a very plain message about what is to be done with sin. The ONLY message which answers to the needs of an awakened conscience and an alarmed heart is the "old-fashioned" message that Jesus Christ the Righteous has died for us sinful men. ALL other religions have felt after a clear doctrine of forgiveness, and all have failed to find it. HERE is the divine ‘Yea!’ And on it alone we can suspend the whole weight of our soul’s salvation.
The rope that is to haul us out of the "horrible pit and the miry clay" had much need to be tested before we commit ourselves to it. There are plenty of easygoing superficial theories about forgiveness predominant in the world to-day. Except the one that says, ‘In Whom we have redemption through His Blood, even the forgiveness of sin,’ they are all like the rope let down into the dark mine to lift the captives beneath, half of the strands of which have been cut on the sharp edge above, and when the weight hangs on to it, it will snap. There is nothing on which a man who has once learned the tragical meaning and awful reality and depth of the FACT of his transgression can suspend his forgiveness, except this, that ‘Christ has died, the just for the unjust, to bring us unto God.’ ‘IN HIM the promise is YES.’
And, again, we have in Christ, divine certainties in regard to life. We have IN Him the absolutely perfect pattern to which we are to conform our whole doings. And so, notwithstanding that there may, and will still be, many uncertainties and much perplexity, we have the great broad lines of morals and of duty traced with a firm hand, and ALL that we NEED to know of obligation and of perfectness lies in this= BE LIKE JESUS CHRIST!
So the solemn commandments of the ethical side of Divine Revelation, as well as the promises of it, get their ‘YES’ in Jesus Christ, and HE stands as the Law of our lives.
We have certainties for life, in the matter of protection, guidance, supply of all necessity, and the like, treasured and garnered in Jesus Christ. For He not only confirms, but fulfills, the promises which God has made.
If we have that dear Lord for our very own, and He belongs to us as He DOES belong to them who love Him and trust Him, then IN Him we HAVE in actual possession these promises, how many soever they be, which are given by God’s other words.
Christ is Protean, and becomes everything to each man that each man requires. He is, as it were, ‘a box where sweets compacted lie.’ ‘In Him are hid ALL the treasures,’ not only of wisdom and knowledge, but of divine gifts, and we have but to go to Him in order to have that which, at each moment as it emerges, we most require. As in some of those sunny islands of the Southern Pacific, one tree supplies the people with all that they need for their simple wants– fruit for their food, leaves for their houses, staves, thread, needles, clothing, drink, everything– so Jesus Christ, this Tree of Life, is HIMSELF the sum of ALL the promises, and, having Him, we have everything that we need.
And, lastly, in Christ we have the divine certainties as to the Future over which, apart from Him, lie cloud and darkness. As I said about the revelation of the Heart of God, so I say about the revelation of a future life– a verbal revelation is not enough. We have enough of arguments; what we want is facts. We have enough of man’s peradventures about a future life [after death], enough of "evidence" more or less valid to show that it is ‘probable,’ or ‘not inconceivable,’ or ‘more likely than not,’ and so on and so on. What we want is that somebody shall cross the gulf and come back again, and so we GET in the Resurrection of Christ the ONE FACT on which men may safely rest their convictions of immortality, and I do not think that there is a second anywhere. On the Resurrection alone... hinges the whole answer to the question= ’If a man die, shall he live again?’ This generation is brought... right up to this alternative= [either] Christ’s Resurrection [is the fact of reality], or we die like the brutes that perish. [And we mortals have the answer– joyous to believers and terrible to rebels– in this verse:] ‘All the promises of God, in Him, are yes.'
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https://www.chaimbentorah.com/2025/11/in-depth-study-we-need-pure-faith-not-more-faith/
Countless books have been written as to how we can have "more faith". If someone isn’t healed or prosperous it is because "they did not have enough faith". That "not enough faith" business seems to be Christianity’s favorite excuse as to why our prayers are not answered. Thus, there are sermons, podcasts, books, teachings, and whole organizations built on developing your faith. Teachings on how to "exercise your faith" like you exercise your body. The more you exercise, the stronger your muscles become, so the more you exercise your faith, the "stronger" it becomes.
It seems the whole "problem" with Christianity is that Christians have "so little faith". Yet, Jesus follows this declaration by saying all you need is the faith of a mustard seed and you can move mountains. ...The question that always comes to my mind and surely yours as well, is: “How do you measure something so subjective as faith with something so objective like a seed?” What constitutes "little faith" as opposed to "big faith"...?
You have the story of Peter who saw Jesus walking on water and asked if he too could walk on the water, and Jesus basically said, “Go for it.” He did and he actually walked on the water out to Jesus. He could be within arm’s length of Jesus when it dawned on him; “Wait, this is impossible!” That’s when he began to sink. Jesus reached out, grabbed him, and it seemed like He scolded Peter saying; “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” But according to many Bible scholars, Jesus wasn’t "scolding" Peter. He wasn’t condemning Peter, as if He were implying: “Peter, Peter, you just don’t get it do you, all this time I have been with you and you have such little faith, shame on you.” No! Actually, Peter had gobs of faith. Would you have the faith to jump over the side of a boat in stormy weather and walk on water? The translations just don’t express the emotional context. In the Aramaic, it is much clearer than the Greek, and what Jesus was really telling Peter is: “Look at you accomplished, Peter, with just a little faith! You just had to hang in there.”
I ran across something interesting as I studied the works of Jewish teachers throughout the ages. They often make a reference to paradatha’dacharadal which is the Aramaic for a grain of mustard. It is not a reference to a mustard seed but a mustard grain. A seed is used to grow a mustard plant or bush, but a grain is harvested and used for food. Thus, the emphasis is NOT on the SIZE but on its USE. The word grain in Aramaic is parad in its root form which means "grains" as a noun, but as a verb, it is used to mean "separate and/or scatter". In one place in the Talmud, I read that a paradatha'dacharadal was used ceremonially in the cleansing of a circle of priests. In other places in Jewish literature, I found the grain of mustard was a purifying agent. A grain of mustard is not eaten directly, as it has a very sharp taste, but is used as a seasoning... to give other foods a sharper taste. I even found in the Mishnah that mustard grain is forbidden during Passover because it causes bread to leaven.
As a Biblical language teacher and amateur linguist, I tried to put what I read in Jewish teachings regarding mustard grains or seeds into a context of the first-century Middle East, and what the disciples heard when Jesus said that "if they had the faith of a grain of mustard, they could move mountains." But just what was a grain of mustard to a first century Jewish mind? [And why was a faith of such a sort specifically declared as able to "move mountains"? For this, as in all matters of discernment in faith, we turn to Scripture.]
In Exodus 19:17, we learn that the people of God assembled at the foot or base of Mount Sinai to receive the Law. But wait, it does not say in the Hebrew that they stood at the "foot or base" of Mount Sinai, it says they stood "bethchethith"– beneath or underneath it. This comes from the root word "tavach" which means underneath... [but for this to be literal in translation], God would literally have to pick the mountain up and hold it over the people. That is ridiculous– almost as ridiculous as having the faith of a grain of mustard seed and telling a mountain to be cast into the sea. Hm. I wonder, could Jesus have been making a reference to this event? Did God actually pick up a mountain and hold it over the heads of the people? [And, foreshadowing His Son's Own words, did God] declare that, if his people followed the Law, they would have the faith to say to this mountain "be removed"? Then, through declaring their faith BY agreeing to follow the Torah/ the Law, they were able to command the mountain to be removed from over their heads! Of course, it is ridiculous to think that two thousand years later the Messiah would reference this crazy event under Mt. Sinai... Surely Jesus was only giving an illustration, He could not have been referring to a real event. Or could He? You explain to me why the writer used the word tavach underneath and not the word yalad which means at the foot of or beside? The ancient sages and rabbis don’t try to explain it away like we Christians of little faith try to do. They ACTUALLY TEACH in the Talmud that God DID PICK UP THE MOUNTAIN and hold it over the heads of the people until they showed their faith to command it to be removed, and that the disciples and other Jews around Jesus who heard His teachings on moving mountains actually believed that such a miraculous event literally took place in their history.
That brings us to the question as to WHY would God dangle a mountain over the heads of His people to "get them to" ratify the Law? I mean isn’t that coercion? That is literally saying, “Ok, you’ve got faith as the grain of mustard seed right now, but you had better use it, or I will drop this mountain and the nation will be nothing but a grease spot.” That would be like threatening someone with hell and saying; “Well, you have "enough" faith to believe in a hell, so how about using that ["grain of mustard" of faith that has at least sparked] a belief in hell, to now accept Jesus as your personal Savior?” The Talmud teaches that God had to put His people into a fearful situation [in order to definitely & inescapably] exercise their faith at this early stage of their development as a nation of God [when they would have had no means, let alone strength or willpower, to "exercise" it on their own]. One thousand years later we find that in Esther 9:27: "the Jews willingly bound themselves, their descendants and all who should join them, to celebrate these two days without fail, in the manner prescribed and at the time appointed, year after year.” The Talmud interprets this as the Jews reaffirming their divine law, and the faith they exercised TO accept it was established and accepted, not out of fear but out of love for God. Just as someone accepting Jesus merely because they are afraid of going to hell WILL one day MATURE to accepting their relationship with God out of LOVE, and not "just" from fear of going to hell "otherwise".
Here is where we come close to what I believe Jesus was teaching about a grain of mustard seed. In the Aramaic, Jesus did not say it was their "lack of faith" or "no faith", but it was a "lashaimanutha"– which could mean "no faith" but as used in Jewish literature it is often rendered as an "impure faith". It would then make sense for Jesus to use the grain of mustard as an illustration, for in the mind of the disciples of the first century, they would be thinking not of the size of their faith but of the purity of their faith.
Now this was a big deal for the Jews as it is today and should be for Christians. The disciples HAD faith, gobs of faith, whole bunches of faith. But Jesus said they could not cast out the demons because they did NOT have PURE faith. Pure faith is faith that has no hidden agendas, faith that has no distortion. It is a faith that believes in the pure Truth of God: that He IS a God who loves, cares, and nourishes, and through the redemption of His Son Jesus Christ, He lives inside of us. It is a faith that is not dependent upon reason, [although it does cooperate with reason even as it transcends it–] just a total trust in the love of God that He has your back [like any good Father does]. You are not alone, [abandoned, forsaken, forgotten, or ignored]. You have been bought and purchased by a price, the Blood of His Beloved Son Jesus, and as [this ultimate sacrifice of Love for your sake makes you] His personal, precious possession [by His Own doing, willingly and freely and even joyfully– your value & worth is not random or arbitrary, but purposefully & permanently designated by your very Creator, declared & sealed by Jesus's Name and Blood imprinted upon your soul], He is hanging onto you tightly [and nothing can take you out of His Hands].
How do we get this pure faith? Jesus told us in verse 21: “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” Prayer in both Hebrew and Aramaic is palal which in its Semitic root refers to the notch in a tent peg. The tent peg securely holds the tent to the ground, but without that notch in the peg, the loop cord of the tent will slip off the peg when the storms come! [The tent is our body, our physical life, as Saint Paul illustrates; and the peg that "grounds" it is our soul, keeping it stable and anchored in a particular place?] Prayer is what secures [the "tent" of our earthly body/life] to God, so that when the storms of life come[– and they will–] we are not blown away. Pure faith is attaching yourself securely to God. [HOWEVER! That attachment notably requires "making a notch"– the "cutting out" of a piece of the peg itself, in order for it to hold on to something besides itself. If the tent is useless without the peg (a body with no soul), then the peg is unreliable without the notch. Prayer makes this notch spiritually, as we sacrifice our own will to the LORD, and let Him carve out a particular, designated place for Himself alone in our very being. But we humans are composite beings, of both soul AND body, so prayer is only one necessary half of the equation. There must also be a "loop cord" that attaches TO the notch, a restraint and anchor that is only made effective THROUGH prayer, preventing looseness & disorder & all manner of ungrounded slackness in the tent.] This comes through fasting, which is denying your physical body of its demands. In fasting you take your eyes off yourself and focus your full attention on God. When that happens, you have no agenda but the agenda of God’s Heart. You have no motives but the motives of God’s Heart, and when you ARE so securely attached to God, you have a certainty of His lovingkindness and caring protection. In a word, you will have pure faith.
Pure faith does not come from clinching your fist and repeating over and over: “I believe, I believe.” Pure faith is attaching yourself to God [through prayer], and focusing your full attention on Him [through self-denial].
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