James Nisbet Commentary - Romans 8:25 - 8:25

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

James Nisbet Commentary - Romans 8:25 - 8:25


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

PATIENT WAITING

‘If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.’

Rom_8:25

We are living in a transition time, by which we mean that ours is an age of change. This is true of mankind everywhere, because change is a law of life. But change is no proof of advance or progress. By a transition time we mean a definite passage, a going over from the old to a new order of things. In a higher sense we Christians, in spiritual matters, are in a transition state; a state of change from a definite past to a no less definite future, and therefore our life is a struggle.

A great truth dawned upon the world in the Advent of Him Who is the Truth of God—a truth far too great as yet for our little understandings to realise. But it is of the earlier period of which I want to speak—the time when Christ was expected only, when some in earnest longing ‘against hope, believed in hope.’ ‘These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off.’

I. What can we learn from those who lived before Christ came in the flesh?—We have seen clearly what they saw but from afar, and we only wait for the full manifestation of the Kingdom of God. Would to God it were so, and that in our day the Advent of Christ were a living, acting reality. But we know that it is not so. I speak not of the light and careless ones, but of the many earnest souls thirsting for a religion which they cannot grasp, wrestling with doubt and despair, oppressed by things they cannot understand. ‘Why does God send this trial! If He is a God of Love, how can evil exist as it does, and slay its thousands? Why does not God declare Himself, that men cannot doubt?’ To these questions they can return no answer, and the difficulty must influence the life for ill. What shall we say to these? Shall we tell them that because they have not seen as clearly as we have seen, therefore their faith is not ours? God forbid. I believe Christ is teaching these earnest ones to see Himself. He has touched their eyes, but as yet they ‘see men as trees walking’; they must wait still for the Saviour’s hand. But it is just that waiting which is so hard. ‘If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.’ That is, and must be, the guiding principle of all religious waiting for Christ. If we are to advance in holiness and likeness to Christ, it must be by the leading of His Spirit, and we must wait for that as patiently as the patriarchs who waited for the day when He should reveal Himself.

II. And in this waiting two things are necessary:—

(a) All through, if you look back to history, you will find that the great men are the onlooking men, who absolutely refused to believe that perfection and truth could not be reached, or that they had reached it. These greater souls are usually the laughing-stock of inferior men; they are people who believe without evidence. Yes, and herein lies the secret of their greatness. They are hoping for that they see not; while the everyday world, like contented swine, has not a thought beyond what it can touch, and taste, and handle. And yet it is a mere platitude to say that the very first condition of that progress of which we are so proud is the throwing one’s self forward into an unknown future, the hoping against hope; often belief in defiance of present evidence, which has created the man of science, the politician, the discoverer, the saint of God.

(b) But then the second condition of patient waiting for Christ’s Coming seems to introduce a distinction between the natural and the spiritual. We say patience means, in the spiritual sphere, the allowing God to reveal Himself. In the search for scientific or philosophic discovery and truth man must not be content to sit still and wait; he must wrest Nature’s secret from her. Yet this is true only in part; for it is a canon of scientific discovery that we must put aside preconceived notions of our own. The moment these are allowed to dominate our reasonings, our facts become one-sided, our conclusions not true. Is not that exactly the same in the spiritual sphere? We forget the power of a dominant idea to distort facts, to blind the eyes. Christ came, and the Pharisees, learned in the law and the prophets, put Him to death; Simeon, who waited for the salvation of Israel, had grace to say,’ Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.’ The remedy is to rest and wait, to take God at His word till He reveal the hidden harmony of His mysterious works. Whether you can find a reason or not for such things as sickness and trial: ‘Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently’ till Christ comes near to you. It is a half-faith that trusts God for the end, but cannot leave to Him the means. For though it is true that Christ is come, His coming to the soul is a continuous thing.

Rev. Canon Aubrey L. Moore.