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Ver. 23,24. Here it may be inquired, If Abraham’s faith did justify him, and it was imputed to him for righteousness, what doth this concern us? The apostle answers, it was recorded of him for our sakes; see Rom_15:4; and to us there shall be the like imputation, if we believe in God, that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. This a greater act of faith than Abraham’s was. And the nature of justifying faith lies rather in affiance, or in putttag trust in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, than in assent, or in giving credit, to the truth of his promise.
Question. Why doth the apostle single out this act of raising Christ from the dead to describe the Father by?
Answer. To maintain the proportion betwixt the faith or Abraham and the faith of his seed; that as his respected the power of God, in raising, as it were, the dead, so in like sort should ours. So some. But the apostle speaks as if there were some special reason and ground for confidence in God for justification in this act of raising Christ from the dead; and indeed nothing is more fit to establish our faith in persuasion of our justification than this; for when God raised up our Lord Jesus Christ, having loosed the pains of death, he gave full assurance that his justice is fully satisfied for our sins. Had not Christ Jesus, our surety, paid the utmost farthing that was due for our sins, he had still continued in prison, and under the power of death. Hence it is that the apostle Peter tells us, 1Pe_1:3, that God hath begotten us to a lively hope of the heavenly inheritance by the resurrection of Christ from the dead; there being no more effectual means to persuade us of the pardon of sin, of reconciliation with God, and of acceptance to eternal life, than that Jesus Christ, our surety and sponsor, is risen from the dead.