Bible Commentaries

Psalms 88:13-18 — the day long; They compassed me about together. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, And mine acquaintance unto darkness." "In the morning shall my prayer come before thee" "Although the psalmist's distress has reached critical proportions, his faith in God greets each new day with prayer, in spite of the fact that he is perplexed by God's purposes as seen in his life."The New Bible Commentary, Revised, p. 506. He could not understand the reason for his wretched condition; and it was a mystery

Ezekiel 38:10-16 — Morality; they propose to be saved by Faith alone; and they have abandoned doing any work at all in the kingdom of God. "I will go to them that are at rest" Is resting the work of God's church on earth? No! His people are not fighting the good fight of faith; they are not working in the vineyard of the Lord; they are not preaching the gospel to the whole creation; they have forgotten the admonition of the Lord who said, "Work for the night is coming when no man can work." On no! They are at rest! "The

John 12:32-33 — And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself. But this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should die. As Dr. Baxter wrote: It is difficult to realize the tremendous faith which this expression reflects. We hear these words through nineteen centuries of Christian history which followed them; but, when Jesus made the statement here, there was little visible evidence to make anyone believe that these words might literally

John 14:20 — total and absolute perfection, achieved by Jesus Christ and made available to men "in him." Any so-called "righteousness" based upon anything else is spurious. Nothing that a sinner might either believe or do could make either his faith or his actions the grounds of his being accounted righteous in the sight of God. "All spiritual blessings are in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3). God therefore makes a sinner righteous by bringing him into Christ, identifying him with Christ and

Acts 13:38-39 — fail of justification under the law of Moses. The efforts of some to make this passage non-Pauline are futile. Is justified … The Pauline doctrine of justification, as set forth fully in Romans, makes the final grounds of it to be the perfect faith and obedience of the Son of God. This justification is "in Christ," an expression (or its equivalent) which occurs no less than 169 times in Paul's writings. No man can be justified in his own name, or by his own achievement. It is not

Acts 23:10 — reluctantly saying, "The will of the Lord be done." In this problem we may have a glimpse of the truth that men do not always know with dogmatic certainty what the words of the Holy Spirit mean. Otherwise, it would not be true that "We walk by faith and not by sight." There must have been some dreadful feelings of uncertainty, disappointments and grief in Paul's heart, and emotions of fear that perhaps, after all, he had been wrong about this trip to Jerusalem. Then came the glorious reassurance

Romans 15:4 — Testament quotations from the Old Testament, as here, and throughout the New Testament. Matthew alone quoted the Old Testament 66 times; and practically all of Hebrews is written with the Old Testament in view. The patience of the Old Testament heroes of faith provides strong encouragement for Christians who must struggle with many of the problems and situations which confronted them. Glorious comfort is provided in the record of their ultimate triumph. It is a mistake, therefore, for Christians to confine

1 Corinthians 1:2 — the Corinthians but to God, unto whom they were set apart (sanctified) to serve God by reason of the fact that they were "in Christ." In Christ … denotes the status of all Christians, a relationship brought about through an obedient faith when they were baptized "into" him (Galatians 3:27; 1 Corinthians 12:13; and Romans 6:3). The epic importance of this phrase appears in the fact that it is used no less than 169 times in Paul's epistles. John Mackay, God's Order (New York:

Ephesians 2:6 — him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). Having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him, through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead … you, I say, did he make alive together with him (Colossians 2:12-13). The full meaning of this verse is that Christians who have been baptized into Christ, therein being "made alive

Ephesians 4:12-13 — For the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ; till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. In these verses is set forth the purpose of the Lord in the sending forth of apostles, prophets, evangelists and elders, mentioned

Philippians 4:7 — commentators pay no attention at all to these most important words. Out of Christ there is nothing; in him is the life eternal; and people (let all people hear it) are "baptized into Christ," as Paul himself declared (Romans 6:3). What about faith? No unbeliever can be baptized, and no believer is in Christ until he is baptized into him.

Colossians 3:6 — "disobedient" who shall bear the full weight of the wrath of God. Theologies which seek to eliminate "obedience" as being in any way connected with salvation should be rejected. Regardless of how vigorously one may protest that he has "faith in Christ," unless there is on his part at least some movement to obey the teaching of the New Testament, his doom is certain. Until he has, in his Christian baptism, been buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life, as had these

1 Thessalonians 4:17 — given to tease the intellectual curiosity of believers; but they all must be understood in the light of the passage before us, which comes to us in a section of exhortations; and, in the light of the purpose of Paul's words here, the passage supplies faith, confidence and certainty that death cannot rob any child of God of rewards which God may allow to be rightfully his. In the light of such a purpose, the passage does all it was intended to do, but it does not go beyond that.

1 Timothy 6:11 — But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Barakman has an interesting homily based upon the following outline of the next two verses, thus: The fact that a man has been called of God and is equipped for service by the gift of the Holy Spirit does not eliminate

Hebrews 10:36 — destruction. (3) The Christians who received this epistle had already endured great hardship and suffering and should not throw all that away by becoming indifferent. (4) Patience should be exercised in order to win the crown of life. (5) Christ is faithful and will surely come to reward his followers as he promised. (6) We are not of them that draw back to perdition but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Patience is stressed as the opposite of that impatience which began to develop

James 3:14 — become like that mentioned by Shakespeare: I am Sir Oracle, And when I open my lips, let no dog bark William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene 1, Line 193. Thus is stressed the greater need for all who "contend earnestly for the faith" to do so in a manner becoming the meekness and modesty of truly Christian teachers.

James 5:11 — on the conviction that hardships are not meaningless, but that God has some end or purpose in them which he will accomplish. James Moffatt, The Moffatt New Testament Commentary, James (Garden City, N.Y.: 1928), p. 74. The marvelous endurance of Job's faith in God is inherently visible in his reaction to one disaster after another. When death overtook his family, he said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). When even his wife suggested

1 Peter 2:18 — championship of the cause of the slaves would have promptly inundated the church with a whole army of unregenerated persons, seeking not Christ, but their freedom from slavery. It was Christ's purpose to change the world, but not with dynamite; the holy faith acts as leaven. But also to the froward … Peter took into account the two kinds of slavemasters, the good and the bad, cautioning the slaves to give loyal and true service to both kinds, because that was God's will. Up to here, Peter had

1 Peter 5:12 — By Sylvanus our faithful brother, as I account him, I have written unto you briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God: stand ye fast therein. By Sylvanus our faithful brother … "On its narrowest interpretation, this means simply

2 Peter 3:8 — But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. This verse is based upon Psalms 90:4, the thought being a refutation of the mockers who took the Lord's delay as proof that he