# “Faith is always the beggar’s outstretched hand” by Horatius Bonar - Link: https://tollelege.net/2025/02/10/faith-is-always-the-beggars-outstretched-hand-by-horatius-bonar/ - Published: 2025-02-10T16:00:00-06:00 - Author: tollelege “The work of Christ for us is the object of faith; the Spirit’s work in us is that which produces this faith: it is out of the former, not out of the latter, that our peace and justification come. The serpent-bitten Israelite was to look at the uplifted serpent of brass in order to be healed. But his looking was not the brazen serpent. It was not his act of looking that healed him, but the object to which he looked. So faith is not our righteousness: it merely knits us to the righteous One, and makes us partakers of His righteousness. Faith’s preciousness is not its own, but the preciousness of Him to whom it links us. Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician. It is not even our medicine; it only administers the medicine, divinely prepared by Him who ‘healeth all our diseases.’ In all our believing, let us remember God’s words to Israel: ‘I am Jehovah, that healeth thee’ (**Ex. 15:26**). Our faith is but our touching Jesus; and what is even this, in reality, but His touching us? Faith is not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Saviour is another. Faith is one thing, and the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the living God. Faith is not perfection. Yet only by perfection can we be saved; either our own or another’s. That which is imperfect cannot justify, and an imperfect faith could not in any sense be a righteousness. If it is to justify, it must be perfect. It must be like ‘the Lamb, without blemish and without spot.’ An imperfect faith may connect us with the perfection of another; but it cannot of itself do aught for us, either in protecting us from wrath or securing the divine acquittal. All faith here is imperfect; and our security is this, that it matters not how poor or weak our faith may be: if it touches the perfect One, all is well. The touch draws out the virtue that is in Him, and we are saved. The slightest imperfection in our faith, if faith were our righteousness, would be fatal to every hope. But the imperfection of our faith, however great, if faith be but the approximation or contact between us and the fulness of the substitute, is no hindrance to our participation of His righteousness. God has asked and provided a perfect righteousness; He nowhere asks nor expects a perfect faith. An earthenware pitcher can convey water to the traveller’s thirsty lips as well as one of gold; nay, a broken vessel, even if there be but ‘a sherd to take water from the pit’ (**Isa. 30:14**), will suffice. So a feeble, very feeble faith, will connect us with the righteousness of the Son of God; the faith, perhaps, that can only cry, ‘Lord, I believe; help mine unbelief.’ Faith is not satisfaction to God. In no sense and in no aspect can faith be said to satisfy God, or to satisfy the law. Yet if it is to be our righteousness, it must satisfy. Being imperfect, it cannot satisfy; being human, it cannot satisfy, even though it were perfect. That which satisfies; must be capable of bearing our guilt; and that which bears our guilt must be not only perfect, but divine. It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It brings us to the cross, where there is expiation, and propitiation, and payment, and cleansing, and righteousness; but in itself it has no merit and no virtue. Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor the sacrifice; it is not the altar, nor the laver, nor the mercy-seat, nor the incense. It does not work, but accepts a work done ages ago; it does not wash, but leads us to the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. It does not create; it merely links us to that new thing which was created when the ‘everlasting righteousness’ was brought in (**Dan. 9:24**). And as faith goes on, so it continues; always the beggar’s outstretched hand, never the rich man’s gold; always the cable, never the anchor; the knocker, not the door, or the palace, or the table; the handmaid, not the mistress; the lattice which lets in the light, not the sun. Without worthiness in itself, it knits us to the infinite worthiness of Him in whom the Father delights; and so knitting us, presents us perfect in the perfection of another. Though it is not the foundation laid in Zion, it brings us to that foundation, and keeps us there, ‘grounded and settled’ (**Col. 1:23**), that we may not be moved away from the hope of the gospel. Though it is not ‘the gospel,’ the ‘glad tidings,’ it receives these good news as God’s eternal verities, and bids the soul rejoice in them. Though it is not the burnt-offering, it stands still and gazes on the ascending flame, which assures us that the wrath which should have consumed the sinner has fallen upon the substitute.” –Horatius Bonar, [_The Everlasting Righteousness; or, How Shall a Man be Just with God?_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851516556?tag=toletaupanre-20)( Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1874/1993), 110-113. 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