The teacher should again call attention to the fact that each member of this great company of the glorified redeemed has been saved by “grace through faith.” It matters not in which age or dispensation grace was appropriated-all alike sing praise to the Lamb whose Blood has washed them from their sins.
The saints of the Old Testament, as well as the saints of the New, put faith in the Lamb of Calvary and received Eternal Life thereby. This fact is brought out very clearly in Hebrews 11, which should now be carefully read. The nature of faith also may be perceived as we study this chapter. Faith is believing God’s Word to the extent of acting upon it. Notice that every person mentioned here acted upon God’s Word. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead, yet speaketh.” “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him; for before his translation he had the testimony, that he pleased God.” Are these men behind the New Testament saints or the saints of the present time? Is their “testimony” inferior to ours? Surely not. Rather are they far in advance of the majority of Christians.
Think of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesying of the Coming of the Lord “with tens of thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which in their ungodliness they have committed, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” (See Jude 14-15.) Who taught him that evil men would “wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (see 2 Tim. 3:13), and that instead of growing better as the appearing of Christ drew near, the world would become increasingly wicked and ungodly? It was the same Holy Spirit who revealed these things to Paul, Who shows them to us, and concerning Whom, Christ said before His Ascension, “He will show you things to come.” And if the Holy Spirit revealed to Enoch the Coming of Christ with His saints to judge the world, did He not as plainly reveal the fact of His Coming for His saints-His ready, watching ones-to take them out of the ungodly world conditions before the terrible Tribulation period; and did he not live in the light of His Coming? Surely Enoch, in the Antediluvian dispensation, was not behind those watching saints who today are seeking to have the testimony that they please God before they are ready for translation. Intervening years make no difference whatever; the Enochs are one in spirit, in walk, in objective.
The list of the heroes of faith is a long one, but it is not complete. Many, many others whose names are not written obtained “a good testimony through faith.” Were each one to be questioned as to his relation to God, he would reply, “I am a sinner saved by grace, through faith; therefore a child of God.” Dispensational exteriors seem to place the Old Testament saints in a far away period, but their confession of faith and the fact that they share with us Uncreated (Eternal) Life, that has no past-brings them near; and we feel the oneness.
Abel’s name appears first upon this Faith Roll, but was he the first human being to put faith in God’s Slain Lamb? Bearing in mind our definition of faith, which is “believing God’s Word to the extent of acting upon it,” let us look a little farther back, before the birth of Abel.
In another section of these studies, attention has been called to the attitude of Adam and Eve in relation to the slain lamb whose blood was shed that they might be clothed, and the statement was made that through the illumination of God the Holy Spirit, Adam and Eve understood enough of God’s Plan of Redemption to put faith in God’s Slain Lamb. The proof of that statement we now find in Genesis 3:20 and 4:1. Adam believed God’s word concerning “the seed of the woman,” who should crush the head of Satan; therefore he immediately acted his faith by calling his wife Eve, which signifies that not only was she to become the mother of all living, the mother of the human race, but it was the expression of his confident expectation of the Coming One, of whom God had spoken. This confident attitude of faith was shared by Eve, who exclaims upon the birth of Cain, “I have gotten a Man-even Yahweh” (Gen. 4:1, Rotherham).
Concerning this subject we will quote from an exceedingly helpful book, Yahveh Christ-The Memorial Name:
The exclamation of Eve at the birth of Cain may be expressed with more faithfulness as to the original by the rendering, “I have received Him, even He who is to come.” The ancient root form, Havah, from which comes Yahveh, gave rise, through the idea of “breathing,” its original “sense idea,” to the two Hebrew verbs “to be” and “to desire.” From “to breathe,” as the sign of existence, was derived “to be”; and from “to breathe or pant after” came “to long for,” “to desire.” How doubly significant in this view is the exclamation of Eve: “I have received Him, even He who will be.” “The Promised One.” “The Longed for.”
Although they were disappointed to find that Cain was not the “Promised One,” yet they did not lose faith in God’s word, as the name given to their third son, Seth, plainly implies (see Gen. 4:25); and from the seed of Seth descended Mary, the woman, whose seed, Jesus, was the object of the faith of Adam and Eve. Their names are not mentioned in Hebrews 11 for obvious reasons. They were the parents of the human race. Their sin affected each human being because of the law of heredity. Their faith was an individual matter and would have no bearing upon the status of the human race. Adam was the first Representative man; therefore, it was essential that only such of his acts as were representative in character should be plainly set forth in God’s Written Word. His faith was an individual act affecting only himself. It was not representative in character, as is plainly shown in the fact that Cain, his firstborn, was the first human being who refused to put faith in God’s Slain Lamb.
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