The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 by John Bunyan (books to read to improve english .TXT) 📕

‘The Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel’ (Joel 3:16).

His faithfulness also is a great encouragement to his, to hope for the accomplishment of all that he hath promised unto his people.

‘Hath he said it, and shall he not make it good?’ When he promised to bring Israel into the land of Canaan, he accomplished it to a tittle. ‘There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass’ (Josh 21:45, 23:14). Also what he with his mouth had promised to David, with his hand he fulfilled to Solomon in the view of all the thousands of Israel (1 Kings 8:22-24; 2 Chron 6:7-10).

[Third. The persons who are concerned in the management of this duty of hope.]

I will omit making mention again of the encouragements spoken of before, and shall now come to the third thing specified in this part of the text, to wit, to show more distinctly, who, and what particular persons they are, who are concerned in this exhortation to hope.

They are put, as you see, under this general term Israel; ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord.’ And, ‘He shall save Israel from all his troubles.’ Israel is to be taken three ways, in the Scripture. 1.

For such that are Israel after the flesh. 2. For such as are such neither after the flesh nor the Spirit; but in their own fancies and carnal imaginations only. 3. For such as are Israel after God, or the Spirit.

1. Israel is to be taken for those that are such after the flesh; that is, for those that sprang from the loins of Jacob, and are called, ‘Israel after the flesh, the children of the flesh.’ Now these, as such, are not the persons interested in this exhortation, for by the flesh comes no true spiritual and eternal grace (Rom 9:6-8; 2 Cor 1:10-18). Men are not within the bounds of the promise of eternal life, as they are the children of the flesh, either in the more gross or more refined sense (Phil 3:4-6). Jacob was as spiritual a father as any HE, I suppose that now professeth the gospel; but his spiritualness could not convey down to this children, that were such only after the flesh, that spirit and grace that causeth sound conversion, and salvation by Jesus Christ. Hence Paul counts it a carnal thing to glory in this; and tells us plainly, If he had heretofore known Christ thus, that is, to have been his brother or kinsman, according to the flesh, or after that, he would henceforth know him, that is, so, ‘no more’ (2 Cor 5:16-18). For though the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet not that multitude, but the remnant that the Lord hath chosen and shall call, shall be saved (Rom 9:27; Joel 2:32). This, therefore, is as an arrow against the face of that false doctrine that the Jews leaned upon, to wit, that they were in the state of grace, and everlasting favour of God, because the children and offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But,

2. Israel may be taken for such as are neither so after the flesh, nor the Spirit, but in their own fancy and imagination only. And such I take to be all those that you read of in Revelation 2:9

which said ‘they were Jews, and were not,’ ‘but did lie’ (3:9).

These I take to be those carnal gospellers,[15] that from among the Gentiles pretended themselves to be Jews inwardly, whose circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, when they were such only in their own fancies and conceits, and made their profession out as a lie (Rom 2:28,29). Abundance of these there are at this day in the world; men who know neither the Father, nor the Son, nor anything of the way of the Spirit, in the work of regeneration; and yet presume to say, ‘They are Jews’; that is, truly and spiritually the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ‘For’ now, ‘he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit,—whose praise is not of men, but of God.’ And although it may please some now to say, as they of old said to them of the captivity, ‘We seek your God as ye do’ (Ezra 4:2); yet at last it will be found, that as they, such have ‘no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem’

(Neh 2:20). And I would from hence caution all to take heed of presuming to count themselves Jews, unless they have a substantial ground so to do. For to do this without a good bottom, makes all our profession a lie; and not only so, but it hindereth us of a sight of a want of an interest in Jesus Christ, without which we cannot be saved; yea, such an one is the great self-deceiver, and so the worst deceiver of all: for he that deceives his own self, his own heart, is a deceiver in the worst sense; nor can any disappointment be like unto that which casts away soul and body at once (James 1:22,26). O slender thread! that a man should think, that because he fancieth himself ‘an Israelite indeed,’ that therefore he shall go for such an one in the day of judgment; or that he shall be able to cheat God with a pitiful say-so!

3. But the Israel under consideration in the text, is Israel after God, or the Spirit; hence they are called ‘the Israel of God,’

because they are made so of him, not by generation, nor by fancy, but by Divine power (Can 6:16). And thus was the first of this name made so, ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel’ (Gen 32:28). This then is the man concerned in the text, ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord’; to wit, Israel that is so of God’s making, and of God’s allowance: for men are not debarred from calling themselves after this most godly name, provided they are so indeed; all that is dangerous is, when men shall think this privilege comes by carnal generation, or that their fancying of themselves to be such will bear them out in the day of judgment. Otherwise, if men become the true servants of God by Christ, they have, as I said, an allowance so to subscribe themselves. ‘One shall say, I am the Lord’s and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel’ (Isa 44:5). But then, for the further describing of such, they must be men of circumcised and tender hearts; they must be such ‘which worship God in the spirit, and that rejoice in Christ Jesus, and that have no confidence in the flesh’ (Phil 3:3), for these are the Nathaniels, the Israelites indeed in whom there is no guile (John 1:47), and these are they that are intended in the exhortation, when he saith, ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord.’

For these are formed for that very end, that they might hope in the Lord; yea, the word and testament are given to them for this purpose (Psa 78:5-7). These are prisoners of hope all the time they are in the state of nature, even as the whole creation is subjected under hope, all the time of its bondage, by the sin and villainy of man; and unto them it shall be said, in the dispensation of the fullness of time, ‘Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope’ (Zech 9:12); as certainly as that which is called the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:18-21). Only here, as I said before, let all men have a care in this thing: this is the pinnacle, the point; he that is right here, is right in all that is necessary to salvation; but he that misses here, can by no means be right anywhere to his soul’s advantage in the other world.

[Improvement.] If I should a little improve the text where this title is first given to man, and show the posture he was in when it was said to him, ‘Thy name shall be called Israel’; and should also debate upon the cause or ground of that, ‘An Israelite indeed,’

thou mightest not repent it who shall read it; and therefore a few words to each.

1. When Jacob received the name of Israel, he was found wrestling with the angel; yea, and so resolved a wrestler was he, that he purposed, now he had begun, not to give out without a blessing, ‘I will not let thee go,’ said he, ‘except thou bless me’ (Gen 32:26).

Discouragements he had while he wrestled with him, to have left off, before he obtained his desire; for the angel bid him leave off; ‘let me go,’ said he. He had wrestled all night, and had not prevailed; and now the day brake upon him, and consequently his discouragement was like to be the greater, for that now the majesty and terribleness of him with whom he wrestled would be seen more apparently; but this did not discourage him: besides, he lost the use of a limb as he wrestled with him; yet all would not put this Israel out. Pray he did, and pray he would, and nothing should make him leave off prayer, until he had obtained, and therefore he was called ‘Israel.’ ‘For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed’ (Gen 32:28,30). A wrestling spirit of prayer is a demonstration of an Israel of God; this Jacob had, this he made use of, and by this he obtained the name of ‘Israel.’

A wrestling spirit of prayer in straits, difficulties, and distresses; a wrestling spirit of prayer when alone in private, in the night, when none eye seeth but God’s then to be at it, then to lay hold of God, then to wrestle, to hold fast, and not to give over until the blessing is obtained, is a sign of one that is an Israel of God.

2. ‘Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile’ (John 1:47).

This was the testimony of the Lord Jesus concerning Nathaniel (v 46). Nathaniel was persuaded by Philip to come to Jesus, and as he was coming, Jesus saith to the rest of the disciples concerning him, ‘Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.’ Then said Nathaniel to Jesus, ‘Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee’ (v 15). Nathaniel, as Jacob, was at prayer, at prayer alone under the fig-tree, wrestling in prayer, for what no man can certainly tell, but probably for the Messias, or for the revelation of him: for the seeing Jews were convinced that the time of the promise was out; and all men were in expectation concerning John, whether he might not be he (Luke 3:15). But Nathaniel was under the fig-tree, alone with God, to inquire of him, and that with great earnestness and sincerity; else the Lord Jesus would not thus have excused him of hypocrisy, and justified his action as he did, concluding from what he did there that he was a true son of Jacob; and