God Justified, Though Man Believes Not

                              August 31, 1890
                                    by
                              C. H. SPURGEON
                                (1834-1892)


"For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of 
God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, and every man a 
liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and 
mightest overcome when thou art judged."--Romans 3:3,4.

The seed of Israel had great privileges even before the coming of Christ. 
God had promised by covenant that they should have those privileges; 
and they did enjoy them. They had a revelation and a light divine, while 
all the world beside sat in heathen darkness. Yet so many Jews did not 
believe, that, as a whole, the nation missed the promised blessing. A 
great multitude of them only saw the outward symbols, and never 
understood their spiritual meaning. They lived and died without the 
blessing promised to their fathers. Did this make the covenant of God to 
be void? Did this make the faithfulness of God to be a matter of 
question? "No, no," says Paul, "if some did not believe, and so did not 
gain the blessing, this was their own fault; but the covenant of God stood 
fast, and did not change because men were untrue." He remained just as 
true as ever; and he will be able to justify all that he has said, and all 
that he has done, and he will do so even to the end. When the great drama 
of human history shall have been played out, the net result will be that 
the ways of God shall be vindicated notwithstanding all the unbelief of 
men.

I am going to talk of our text, at this time, first, as giving to us a 
sorrowful reminder: "For what if some did not believe?" It is sad to be 
reminded that there always have been some who did not believe. Next, 
here is a horrible inference, which some have drawn from this grievous 
fact, that is, because some did not believe, it has been hinted that their 
unbelief would make the faith of God or the faithfulness of God without 
effect; to which, in the third place, the apostle gives an indignant reply: 
"God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, 
That thou mightest be justifies in thy sayings, and mightest overcome 
when thou art judged."

I. Well now, first, we have here A SORROWFUL REMINDER. There always have 
been some who have not believed.

When God devised the great plan of salvation by grace; when he gave his 
own Son to die as the Substitute for guilty men; when he proclaimed that 
whosoever believed in Jesus Christ should have everlasting life; you 
would have thought that everybody would have been glad to hear such 
good news, and that they would all have hastened to believe it. Christ is 
so suitable to the sinner. Why does not the sinner accept him? The way 
of salvation is so simple, so suitable to guilty men, it is altogether so 
glorious, so grand, that if we did not know the depravity of the human 
heart, we should expect that every sinner would at once believe the 
gospel, and receive its boons. But, alas, some have not believed!

Now, this is stated very mildly. The apostle says, "For what if some did 
not believe?" He might have said, "What if many did not believe?" But 
he is talking to his Hebrew friends, and he wishes to woo them; so he 
states the case as gently as he can. Remember, dear friends, the carcasses 
of all but two who came out of Egypt fell in the wilderness through 
unbelief. Only Joshua and Caleb entered the promised land; but the 
apostle does not wish to unduly press his argument, or speak so as to 
aggravate his hearers; and he therefore puts it, "For what if some did not 
believe?" Even in his own day, he might have said, "The bulk of the 
Jewish nation has rejected Christ. Wherever I go, they seek my life. They 
would stone me to death, if they could, because I preach a dying 
Saviour's love;" but he does not put it so; he only mentions that some did 
not believe. Yet this is a very appalling thing, even when stated this 
mildly. If all here, except one person, were believers in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and it was announced that that one unbeliever would be pointed 
out to the congregation, I am sure we would all feel in a very solemn 
condition. But, dear friends, there are many more than one here who 
have not believed on the Son of God, and who, therefore, are not saved. 
If the unconverted were not so numerous, there is all the greater need for 
our tears and our compassion.

The terms of Paul's question suggest a very sweet mitigation of the 
sorrow. "What if some did not believe?" Then it is implied that some did 
believe. Glory be to God, there is a numerous "some" who have believed 
that Jesus is the Christ; and believing in him, have found life through his 
name! These have entered into a new life, and now bear a new character, 
"being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the 
Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." Beloved, we do thank 
God that the preaching of the gospel has not been in vain. Up yonder, 
more numerous than the stars are they that walk in white robes which 
they have washed in the blood of the Lamb; and down here, despite our 
mourning, there is a glorious company, who still follow the Lamb, who 
is to them, their only hope.

Looking at the other side of the case, it is true that, at times, the "some" 
who did not believe meant the majority. It must be admitted that, 
sometimes, unbelievers have preponderated even among the hearers of 
the precious Word. Read the story of Israel through, in the Books of 
Kings and Chronicles, and you will be saddened to find how again and 
again they did not believe. The history of Israel, from the moment they 
became a nation, is a very painful one. It is full of the mercy of God; but 
it is also full of treachery of the human heart. In the days of the judges, 
the people served God while a good judge ruled over them; but as soon 
as he was dead, they went astray after false gods. I almost think that the 
Christian church is in the period of the judges now. When the Lord 
raises up, here one and there another, to preach his Word faithfully, the 
people seem to take heed to it; but when the faithful preachers are gone, 
many of their hearers turn aside again. Blessed be to God, we expect the 
coming of the King soon; and when the King comes, and the period of 
the judges shall have ended, then we shall enter upon a time of rest and 
peace. It may be that, even among hearers of the gospel, those who do 
not believe preponderate over those who do believe. My text sounds like 
a solemn knell, and there is something terribly awful about it, like the 
deep rumbling of underground thunder.

Now, dear friends, this unbelief has usually been the case throughout all 
ages among the great ones of the earth. In our Saviour's day, they said, 
"Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him?" The gospel 
has usually had a free course among the poor and among those who 
some call "the lower orders", though why they are said to be lower than 
others, I do not know, unless it is because the heavier and more valuable 
things generally sink to the bottom. The church of God owes very little to 
kings and princes and nobles. She owes far more to fishermen and 
peasants. Jesus said, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 
because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast 
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy 
sight.: I suspect that, until the King himself shall come, we shall still 
find that the common people will gladly hear the gospel; and that, while 
Christ the Lord will choose for his own some from all ranks and 
conditions of men, it will still be true that "not many wise men after the 
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called."

I think we may also say, with deep solemnity that some who have not 
believed have belonged to the religious and to the teaching class. In the 
days of our Lord and his apostles, the scribes and Pharisees were the 
greatest haters of the doctrine of Christ. Those whom you might have 
supposed, being most familiar with the Scriptures, the scribes, would 
soonest have recognized the Messiah, were the men who would not 
acknowledge him. So it was with the priests, even the chief priests, the 
men who had to do with the sacrifices and with the temple. They rejected 
Christ, although they were the religious leaders of the people. Do you 
suppose it is very different now? Alas, my friends, we may be preachers, 
and yet not preach the gospel of Christ; we may be members of the 
church, and yet not savingly know the gospel; we may go in and out of 
the house of God, and seem to take part in its holy service, and yet, all 
the while, we may be strangers and foreigners in the presence of the 
Most High. Believers are not always those whom you would suppose to 
be believers. The Lord often brings to himself, as in the case of the 
centurion, of whom we read this morning, far-off ones, rough soldiers, 
who were not thought likely to feel the power of such gentle teaching as 
the doctrine of the cross; and they bow before the Saviour. But alas! 
Alas! Among those who appear to be the children of the kingdom, 
brought up in the worship of God, there are some, yea, many, who have 
not believed on Christ; and, saddest of all, even among those who are the 
teachers of others in the things of God, there are some that have not 
savingly believed.

Now, dear friends, if we take the whole range of the nations favoured 
with the gospel, we shall have to say, and say it, as it were, in capital 
letters, "SOME DO NOT BELIEVE," and that "some" is a very large 
number. The question of the apostle is, "What if some did not believe?" 
Well, if I had to ask and answer that question, at this time, I would say, 
"What if some do not believe?" Then they are lost. "He that believeth not 
is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the 
only-begotten Son of God." There still remains, to those who hear the 
gospel, the opportunity to believe; and, believing in the name of the only-
begotten Son of God." There still remains, to those who hear the gospel, 
the opportunity to believe; and, believing, they shall find life through the 
sacred name. Let us pray for them. If some do not believe, let us, who do 
believe, make them the constant subject of our prayers; and then let us 
tell them what is it to be believed, and bear our witness to the saving 
power of the gospel. When we have done that, let us scrupulously take 
care that our life and conduct are consistent with the doctrine that we 
teach, so that, if some do not believe, they may be won to Christ by the 
example of those who believe in him. Oh, that every Christian here 
would seek to bring another person to Christ! I pray you, beloved, if you 
have tasted that the Lord is gracious, be not barren nor unfruitful. If you 
know the great secret, tell it to others. Tell it out; tell it out; we all 
want stirring up to this blessed work; I am sure we do. I heard of a 
Christian who always spoke about Christ to, at least, one person every day. 
I commend the example for your imitation. How many of us could say that 
we do that? I know there are some here who do ten times as much as 
that. It has grown to be a habit with them to speak of Christ to every one 
they meet; but it is not the habit even of all who believe. It takes some 
Christians a long time to begin to say anything for their Lord. Let us try 
and labour hard, that, if some people do not believe, we may bring them 
to the Saviour, that God may have praise from them also.

II. But now I advance a step further, and dwell upon A HORRIBLE INFERENCE 
drawn from the fact that some did not believe. The inference was, that 
their unbelief had made the faith of God, or the faithfulness of God, 
altogether without effect. I will translate what Paul said without dwelling 
on his words.

Some will say, "If So-and-so, and So-and-so do not believe the gospel, 
then religion is a failure." We have read of a great many things being 
failures nowadays. A little time ago, it was a question whether marriage 
was not a failure. I suppose that, by-and-by, eating our dinners will be a 
failure, breathing will be a failure, everything will be a failure. But now 
the gospel is said to be a failure. Why? Because certain gentlemen of 
professed culture and supposed knowledge do not believe it. Well, dear 
friends, there have been other things that have not been believed in by 
very important individuals, and yet they have turned out to be true. I am 
not quite old enough to remember all that was said about the 
introduction of the steam-engine, though I remember right well going to 
see a steam-engine and a railway-train as great wonders when I was a 
boy. Before the trains actually ran, all the old coachmen, and all the 
farmers that had horses to sell, would not believe for a moment that an 
engine could be made to go on the rails, and to drag carriages behind it; 
and in parliament they had to say that they thought they could produce 
an engine that could go at the speed of eight miles an hour. They dare 
not say more, because it would have been incredible if they did. 
According to the wise men of the time, everything was to go to the bad, 
and the engines would blow up, the first time they started with a train. 
But they did not blow up, and everybody now smiles at what those 
learned gentlemen (for some of them were men of standing and learning) 
ventured then to say. Look at the gentlemen who now tell us that the 
gospel is a failure. They are the successors of those who have risen up, 
one after the other; whose principal object has been to refute all that 
went before them. They call themselves philosophers; and, as I have 
often said, the history of philosophy is a history of fools, a history of 
human folly. Man has gone from one form of philosophy to another, and 
every time that he has altered his philosophy, he has only made a slight 
variation in the same things. Philosophy is like a kaleidoscope. The 
philosopher turns it round, and exclaims that he has a new view of 
things. So he has; but all that he sees is a few bits of glass, which alter 
their form at every turn of the toy. If any of you shall live fifty years, you 
will see that the philosophy to today will be a football of contempt for the 
philosophy of that period. They will speak, amidst roars of laughter, of 
evolution; and the day will come, when there will not be a child but will 
look upon it as being the most foolish notion that ever crossed the human 
mind. I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but I know what has 
befallen many of the grand discoveries of the great philosophers of the 
past; and I expect that the same thing will happen again. I have to say, 
with Paul, "What if some did not believe?" It is no new thing; for there 
have always been some who have rejected the revelation of God. What 
then? You and I had better go on believing, and testing for ourselves, 
and proving the faithfulness of God, and living upon Christ our Lord, 
even though we see another set of doubters, and another, and yet another 
ad infinitum. The gospel is no failure, as many of us know.

Is the gospel to be disbelieved because some people will not receive it? I 
trow not, dear friends. As I have already said, many other things have 
been believed, although some people have not believed them; and the 
believers have had the best of it, and so they always will. Has the gospel 
changed your character? Has the gospel renewed you in the spirit of your 
mind? Does the gospel cheer and comfort you in the day of sorrow? Does 
it help you to live, and will it help you to die? Then do not give it up, 
even though some do not believe it.

Again, dear friends, has God failed to keep his promise to Israel because 
some Israelites did not believe? That is the point that Paul aims at, and 
the answer is, "No." He did bring Israel into the promised land, though 
all but two that came out of Egypt died in the wilderness. He did give 
that promised land to Israel, albeit that, through their unbelief, God 
smote them, and they were destroyed; yet a nation came up again from 
their ashes, and God kept his covenant with his ancient people; and to-
day he is keeping it. The "chosen seed of Israel's race" is "a remnant, 
weak and small"; but the day is coming when they shall be gathered in, 
and we shall then rejoice; for then shall be the fullness of the Gentiles, 
also, When Israel has come to her own Lord and King. God has not cast 
away his people, whom he did foreknow; nor has he broken his covenant 
made with Abraham, nor will he while the world standeth, even though 
many believe not on him.

Will God fail to keep his promise to anyone who believes on him? 
Because some do not believe, will God's promise therefore fail to be kept 
to those who do believe? I invite you to come and try. When two of 
John's disciples enquired of Jesus where he dwelt, he said to them, 
"Come and see." If any person here will try Christ, as I tried him, when 
yet a youth, as miserable as I could be, and ready to die with despair, if 
they shall feel in believing such joy as I felt, if they shall experience such 
a change of character as passed over me when I believed in Christ, they 
would not tolerate a doubt. What they have known, and felt, and tasted, 
and handled of the good Word of God, will prove to them that, if some 
believe not, yet God abideth faithful, he will never deny himself. One 
said that she believed the Bible because she was acquainted with the 
Author of it, which is an excellent reason for believing it. You will 
believe the gospel if you are so acquainted with the Saviour who brings 
that gospel to us. Personal dealings with God in Christ, personal trust in 
the living Saviour, will put you out of reach of this strange inference that 
God will be unfaithful because some do not believe in him.

I am going a step further. Will God be unfaithful to his Son if some do 
not believe? I have heard sometimes, a fear expressed that Christ will 
lose those for whom he dies. I thank God that I have no fear about that. 
"He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." I never come 
to you, and, in forma pauperis, ask you to accept Christ, begging and 
praying you to take Christ, because otherwise he will be a loser by you. It 
is you who must beg of him. He giveth grace as a king bestows his 
favours; nay more, he lovingly condescends to entreat you to come to 
him. Suppose that you wickedly say, "We will not have Christ to reign 
over us." If you think that you will rob him of honour, and bring disgrace 
upon him by your rejection, you make a great mistake. If you will not 
have him, others will. If you who are so wise will not have Christ, there 
are plenty, whom you reckon to be fools, who will take him to be their 
"wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." If you 
who are so gay and frivolous will not have my Lord, you will die in your 
sins; but there are others who will have him. Do not think that you can 
by any possibility rob him of his glory. "For what if some did not 
believe?" This word shall yet become true. "The kingdoms of this world 
are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall 
reign for ever and ever." If myriads reject him, there will be myriads who 
will receive him, and in all things he shall have the preeminence; and he 
will return to his Father not defeated, but more than a conqueror over all 
his foes.

To put the question in another shape, "For what if some did not believe?" 
Will God alter his revealed truth? If some do not believe, will God 
change the gospel to suit them? Will he seek to please their depraved 
taste? Ought we to change our preaching because of "the spirit of the 
age"? Never; unless it be to fight "the spirit of the age" more desperately 
that ever. We ask for no terms between Christ and his enemies except 
these, unconditional surrender to him. He will bate not jot of tittle of his 
claims; but he will still come to you, and say, "Submit yourselves; bow 
down, and own me King and Lord, and take me to be your Saviour. Look 
unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and 
besides me there is none else." If you wait till there is a revised version 
of the gospel, you will be lost. If you wait till there is a gospel brought 
out that will not cost you so much of giving up sin, or so much of bowing 
your proud necks, you will wait until you find yourself in hell. Come, I 
pray you, come even now, and believe the gospel. It cannot be altered to 
your taste; therefore alter yourself so as to meet its requirements.

Now suppose that these men, who will not believe, should all concert 
together to proclaim new views in order to upset the gospel. You see, up 
to the present time, they never have agreed. One wing of Satan's army of 
doubters always destroys the other. Just now the great scientists say to 
the modern-thought gentlemen, and say to them very properly, "If there 
is no serpent, and no Eve, and no Adam, and no flood, and no Noah, and 
no Abraham. As you tell us now that all this is a myth, then your whole 
old Book is a lie." I am very much obliged to those who talk thus to the 
disciples of the higher criticism. They thought that they were going to 
have all the scientists on their side, to join them in attacking the ancient 
orthodoxies. There is a split in the enemy's camp; Amalek is fighting 
Edom, and Edom is contending against Moab.

But suppose they were all to agree. Well, what would happen then? I thought 
I saw a vision once, when I was by the seaside. To my closed eyes, there 
seemed to come down to the beach at Brighton a huge black horse, which 
went into the water, and began to drink; and I thought I heard a voice that 
said, "It will drink the sea dry." My great horse grew, and grew, till it was 
such a huge creature that I could scarcely measure it; and still it drank, and 
drank, and drank. All the while the sea did not appear to alter in the least, 
the water was still there as deep as ever. By-and-by the animal burst, and its 
remains were washed up on the beach, and there it lay dead, killed by its own 
folly. That will be the end of this big black horse of infidelity that 
boasts that it is going to drink up this everlasting gospel.

I remember that Christmas Evans put this truth rather roughly on one 
occasion. He said, "There was a dog on the hearthrug, and there was a 
kettle of boiling water on the fire. As the kettle kept puffing out steam 
and hot water, the dog sat up and growled. The more the kettle kept on 
puffing, the more the dog growled; and at last he seized the kettle by the 
throat, and of course the boiling water killed him." Thus will unbelievers 
do with the gospel. They growl at it to-day; but if they ever join together, 
and really make an attack upon it, the gospel will be a savour of death 
unto death to those who oppose it, as it is a savour of life to those who 
receive it.


Thus I have mentioned this horrible inference.

III. Now I close by speaking very briefly upon AN INDIGNANT REPLY to this 
horrible inference.

In reply to this question, "Shall their unbelief make the faith of God 
without effect?" Paul give a solemn negative: "God forbid." All the 
opponents of the gospel cannot move it by a hair's breath; they cannot 
injure a single stone of this divine building. It remains ever the same. 
Let them do what they may, they cannot alter it.

Then Paul utters a vehement protestation: "Yea, let God be true, but 
every man a liar." Can you picture this great host? Here they come, all 
the men who ever lived, unnumbered millions! They come marching up; 
and we stand like the inspecting general at a review, and see them all go 
by; and as every man passes, he shouts, "The gospel is not true. Christ 
did not die. There is no salvation for believers in him." The apostle Paul, 
standing as it were at the saluting-point, and seeing the whole race of 
mankind go by, says, "God is true, and every one of you is a liar." "Let 
God be true, but every man a liar." You know the way that we have of 
counting beads, and if the majority goes in a particular direction, we 
almost go that way. If you count the heads, and there is a general 
consensus of opinion, you are apt to say, "It must be so, for everybody 
says so." But what everybody says is not therefore true. "Let God be true, 
but every man a liar." It is a strange, strong expression; but it is non too 
strong. If God says one thing, and every man in the world says another, 
God is true, and all men are false. God speaks the truth, and cannot lie. 
God cannot change; his word, like himself, is immutable. We are to 
believe God's truth if nobody else believes it. The general consensus of 
opinion is nothing to a Christian. He believes God's word, and he thinks 
more of that than of the universal opinion of men.

Paul next uses a Scriptural argument. Whenever he gets thoroughly redhot, 
and wants an overwhelming argument, he always goes to the divine treasury 
of revelation. He quotes what David had said in the fifty-first Psalm, 
"That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when 
thou art judged."

God will be justified in everything that he has said. You may take every 
line of the Word of God, and rest assured that God will be justified in 
having directed the sacred penman to write that line.

God shall also be justified when he judges, and when he condemns men. 
When he pronounces his final sentence upon the ungodly, "Depart from 
me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
angels:" he shall be justified even in that dreadful hour.

A very startling expression is used here: "That thou mightest overcome 
when thou art judged." Think of this enormous evil; here are men 
actually trying to snatch the balance and the rod from the hand of God; 
and presuming to judge his judgments, and to sit as if they were the god 
of God. Suppose that they could be daring enough to do even that, the 
verdict would be in God's favour. It would be proved that he had neither 
said anything untrue, nor done anything unjust. We are confident that, 
although some do not believe God, he will be justified before men and 
angels, and we shall have nothing to do but to admire and adore him 
world without end.

Now, I could say much more; but I will not except just this, I want those 
who are the Lord's people to be very brave about the things of God. 
There has been too much of yielding, and apologizing, and 
compromising. I cannot bear it; it grieves me to see one truth after 
another surrendered to the enemy. A brother writes to me, saying, "You 
do not put so much mirth into your preaching as you used to do. When 
the captain at sea whistles, then all the sailors feel more cheerful." My 
friend adds, "Whistle a bit." I will do so. This is my way of whistling to 
cheer my shipmates. I believe in the everlasting God, and in his 
unchanging truth; and I am persuaded that the gospel will win the day, 
however long and stern the conflict rages. Therefore, my brethren, be not 
ashamed of the gospel, nor of Christ your Lord, who died that he might 
save you eternally. "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, 
be strong." Even if it did come to this, that every other man in the world 
were against the truth of God, stand you to his word, and say, "Let God 
be true, but every man a liar."

The other word that I have to say is a message to the unsaved. If you are 
opposed to God, I beseech you give up your opposition at once. The 
battle cannot end well for you unless you yield yourself to God. He is 
your Maker and Preserver; every argument we can use ought to convince 
you that you should be on his side. I pray you remember that, for you to 
contend with God, is for the gnat to contend with the fire , or the wax, to 
fight with the flame. You must be destroyed if you come into collision 
with him. Then yield to him at once. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and 
ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." What is it 
to kiss the Son? Why, to accept the Lord Christ as your King and 
Saviour. To ask him to be your peace and your salvation. Ask him now, 
before that clock ceases striking. I pray that some may at this moment 
say, "I will have Christ, and I will be Christ's." The Lord grant it! This 
great transaction done now, it shall be done forever; and you and I will 
meet on the other side of Jordan, in the land of the blessed, and eternally 
praise him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, 
and made us kings and priests unto God. The Lord be with you, for 
Jesu's sake! Amen.

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