By J.G. Bellet
The reflection with which the Lord opens these verses appears to have been suggested to His mind by these scenes of Luke 14 - 16. All that had been passing under His eye and ear led Him to thoughts of offences; and such thoughts find their utterances here,. in secret with His elect. He found hindrances to the display and settlement of His kingdom in the place where all should have been prepared for it; and He is led to pronounce woe on the offender.
Offences are those principles which are inconsistent. with the nature of His kingdom, and hinder its exhibition--"obstructions and oppositions given to faith and holiness." And in order, it may be, the more carefully to guard His disciples against offending, the Lord. gives them two admonitions, according to. which two essential virtues of His kingdom were to be preserved its purity and its graciousness. If there were trespass, He requires rebuke; for this would maintain, His house in pure or holy order; if there were repentance, He commands forgiveness; for this would maintain His house in loving, gracious order.
But these demands which He makes on the hearts of His disciples they find to. be quite beyond them, and lead them to know that they must needs get strength out of Another for them. Under this consciousness they say, "Increase our faith"--faith being that which takes us into the resources of One Who is greater than ourselves, and draws virtue out of that which has been divinely ordained to meet our necessity.
For, in addition to our previous meditations on faith, I might, say that, considered as that by which a sinner is justified, faith is simply the believing of a testimony, that testimony being the gospel; our justification being "by faith, that it might be by grace." This intimates that work must be excluded. And this the fourth chapter of Romans discusses and teaches. But Scripture also speaks of faith as the principle which animates the life of a saint. This the eleventh chapter of Hebrews presents to us. And, in this character, it is a growing virtue or principle in the soul. It may be either weak or strong, great or little. As we read here, "Lord, increase our faith;" and as we elsewhere read, "O ye of little faith;" and again, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed;" and again, "Your faith groweth exceedingly."
In this sense Scripture considers it, as I before said, a growing principle in the soul. It is our entrance into the power of the testimony which is believed; "the substance [confidence] of things hoped for, the evidence [conviction] of things not seen." It is, we may say, the power of divine life in the soul, and may be in health and vigour there, or the contrary. It stands for the energy of the kingdom of God within us. Scripture mentions it as that which apprehends God, waits on Him, walks with Him. So that if faith be strong, those, and the like graces and actions, are fresh and lively. And being this, it should be with real, unfeigned humiliation we speak, when we confess that our faith is weak; for this, if made in spiritual intelligence, is a confession of how little our souls are alive to God.
Scripture, I need not say, abounds with notices of this great principle. It considers it in its source, its actings, its qualities, its value with God, and the like. And the Lord here, in answer to the desire of His apostles for an increase of it, describes it to them in its two chief attributes--its sovereignty, so to speak, and its self-renunciation--being that which can command the sycamine-tree into the sea, but then will come back to God and say, that all is nothing. These are its necessary excellencies. It takes all blessing from God, but leaves all glory with God. Rom. 4.
