first in which Scripture speaks of faith. Abram leaned on 'the Lord.'
It was not the promise, but the promiser, that was truly the object
of Abram's trust. He believed the former, because he trusted Him who
made it. Many confusions in Christian teaching would have been avoided
if it had been always seen that faith grasps a person, not a doctrine,
and that even when the person is revealed by doctrine, it is him, and
not only it, which faith lays hold of. Whether God speaks promises,
teachings of truth, or commandments, faith accepts them, because it
trusts Him. Christ is revealed to us for our faith by the doctrinal
statements of the New Testament. But we must grasp Himself, as so
revealed, if we are to have faith which saves the soul. This same
thought of the true object of faith as personal helps us to understand
the substantial identity of faith in all ages and stages of revelation,
however different the substance of the creeds. Abram knew very little
of God, as compared with our knowledge. But it was the same God whom
Abram trusted, and whom we trust as made known in His Son. Hence we
can stretch out our hands across the ages, and clasp his as partaker
of 'like precious faith.' We walk in the light of the same sun,--he
in its morning beams, we in its noonday glory. There has never been
but one road to God, and that is the road which Abram trod, when 'he
believed in the Lord.'

3. Mark the full-orbed gospel truth as to the righteousness of faith
which is embedded in this record of early revelation, 'He counted it
to him for righteousness.' A geologist would be astonished if he
came on remains in some of the primary strata which indicated the
existence, in these remote epochs, of species supposed to be of much
more recent date. So here we are startled at finding the peculiarly
New Testament teaching away back in this dim distance. No wonder
that Paul fastened on this verse, which so remarkably breaks the