Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.… Strange it is that His Majesty is pleased to clothe Himself with so many titles and names for us. He considers what our necessity is, and accordingly expresses His own name. I think nothing doth more hold forth the unbelief of men and atheism of our hearts than the many several titles God takes in Scripture; there is a necessity for a multitude of them, to make us take up God, because we, staying upon a general notion of God, rather frame in our imaginations an idol than the true God. Needed there any more to be said but "I am your God, I am God," if our spirits were not so far degenerated into atheism and unbelief? Therefore wonder at these two when you read the Scriptures, God's condescension to us and our unbelief of Him. There is not a name of God but it gives us a reproach. This name is clear — He is a God of truth; not only a true God, but Truth itself, to note His eminency in it. It is Christ's name — "I am the Truth," the substantial Truth, in whom all the promises are truth, are yea and amen. His truth is His faithfulness in performing His promises and doing what His mouth hath spoken: and this is established in the very heavens (Psalm 89:2). His everlasting purpose is in heaven, where He dwells, and therefore there is nothing done in time that can impair or hinder it. He may change His commands as He pleases, but He may not change His promise. This puts an obligation on Him, as He is faithful and true, to perform it; and when an oath is superadded, oh! how immutable are these two! — when He promises in His truth and swears in His holiness. Is there any power in heaven and earth can break that double cord? (Matthew 5:18; Hebrews 6:18.) There is no name of God but it is comfortable to some, and as terrible to others. What comfort is it to a godly man that trusts in His Word, He is a God of truth! You who have ventured your souls on His Word, you have an unspeakable advantage: His truth endures forever, and it is established in the heavens; the ground of it is without beginning, the end of it without end. Mercy made so many precious promises, and truth keeps them. Mercy is the fountain of our consolation, and truth and faithfulness convey it to us, and keep it for us. It is these two that go before His face when He sits on a throne of majesty and makes Himself accessible to sinners (Psalm 89:14), and so they are the pathway He walks in towards those who seek Him (Psalm 25:10). But this precious name, that is as ointment poured forth to those who love Him, how doth it smell of death to those who walk contrary to Him! He is a God of truth, to execute His threatenings on those who despise His commands; and though you flatter yourselves in your own eyes, and cry, "Peace, peace," even though you walk in the imagination of your heart, yet certainly He is a God of truth. It was unbelief of God's threatening that first ruined man; it is this still that keeps so many from the remedy and makes their misery irrecoverable. But if any man have set to his seal that God is true in His threatening, and subscribed unto the law, then, I beseech you, add not the unbelief of the Gospel unto your former disobedience. You have not kept His commands, and so the curse is come upon you. Do you believe that? If you do, then the Gospel speaks unto you, the God of truth has one word more — "He that believes shall be saved," not withstanding all his breaking of the law. If you do not set your seal to this also, then you say He is not a God of truth; you say He is a liar. And as for you who have committed your souls to Him, as to a faithful keeper, and acquiesced unto His word of promise for salvation, think how unsuitable it is for you to distrust Him in other lesser things. (H. Binning.) Parallel Verses KJV: He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. |
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