WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
[p. 6] WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
I now address myself to those in whose hearts the above momentous inquiry has arisen. One part of your need, at least, you are already conscious of, namely, THE NEED OF PARDON FOR YOUR SINS. I should be glad to think that some who will read this book are as anxious to have the knowledge of forgiveness as an elderly lady to whom I once put the question, Are your sins forgiven? I shall never forget the wistful look that came into her eyes, and the earnest trembling tones of her voice, as she said, Sir, I would give all that I possess to know that. I found that she had long known her need of pardon, and that she prayed, and read her Bible, and went to church, and was hoping that it might be well at last. She knew not the grace of God nor the value of the precious blood of His Son. Many are in a similar state, and it is to such I now speak.
Let me assure you, at the outset, that pardon for sins cannot be bought with money, or earned by good works, or won by tears and prayers. If you spent all your life in reading the Bible and in prayers; if you wept out the contrition of your heart in an ocean of penitential tears; yea, if you gave all your goods to the poor, and your body to be burned; none of these things would secure the pardon of your sins. Nay, I will go further, and say that if you could by some means acquire to yourself the combined merits of all the saints of God who ever lived on earth, there is not value enough in all their holy living and dying to absolve one of your sins.
God’s word is plain — “IT IS THE BLOOD that maketh an atonement for the soul”, Leviticus 17: 11. There is, there could be, no pardon without atonement: no remission apart from redemption. “Without shedding of blood is
NO REMISSION”,
Hebrews 9: 22 [p. 7] Is it not a solemn and humbling fact that though we have almost unlimited power to commit sins, we have no power whatever to atone for them when they are committed? This closes the door against all the pride of man, and shuts up us entirely to God.
GOD HIMSELF is the source of every blessing for lost man, and HE WANTS TO FORGIVE YOU. Listen to some of His words! “Herein is love, not that we loved God, BUT THAT HE LOVED US, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins”, 1 John 4: 10 The only-begotten Son of God came into the world heralded by the announcement, “Thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins”, Matthew 1: 21. In view of what He was about to accomplish, that blessed Saviour could say, “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins”, Matthew 26: 28. He actually upon the cross
“SUFFERED FOR SINS,
the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”, 1 Peter 3: 18; and His resurrection on the morning of the third day put the seal of God’s infinite satisfaction upon His great atoning work. Then as the risen Saviour — the Accomplisher of redemption — He appeared to His disciples “and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”, Luke 24: 46, 47.
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD!
God has provided a Lamb; He has found a Ransom. Full atonement has been made, and in divine righteousness you may be pardoned. God is “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”, Romans 3: 26. Simple faith in Jesus and His blood will [p. 8] secure you the full and free remission of your sins. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”, 1 John 1: 7.
GOD IS NOW PROCLAIMING THE PARDON OF SINS to every creature under heaven, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to Peter — “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins”, Acts 10: 43. Listen to Paul — “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things”, Acts 13: 38, 39. Listen to John — “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God .. . I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake”, 1 John 5: 13; 1 John 2: 12.
Let me beseech you, then, to receive this blood-bought pardon — to believe NOW on the Lord Jesus Christ. May the language of your heart be —
‘On the Lamb my soul is resting,
What His love no tongue can say,
All my sins, so great, so many,
In His blood are washed away.
Sweetest rest and peace have filled me,
Sweeter praise than tongue can tell,
God is satisfied with Jesus,
I am satisfied as well.
Conscience now no more condemns me,
For His own most precious blood
Once for all has washed and cleansed me,
Cleansed me in the eyes of God!’ (410:1)
Satan’s object is gained if he can induce sinners to despise Christ on the one hand, or to despair of Him on the other. The first he accomplishes by filling the heart with the world and the things that are in the world, so that the blessed Saviour is unthought of and neglected by those for whom He died. The latter [p. 9] Satan seeks to effect by bringing before us our sins, unworthiness, weakness of faith, inconsistency, and so on.
So long as we were satisfied with the world and its things, and did not think about our souls, or value Christ at all, Satan never suggested any doubts and fears to us. When the strong man armed kept his palace his goods were in peace. It was when the Spirit of God touched our hearts and made us feel that we needed a Saviour, and we began to be somewhat drawn to the Lord Jesus, that doubts and fears began to trouble us. When Satan sees that we no longer despise Christ, he says, I will do my best to make you despair of Him.
The Spirit of God makes us think of our sins, our unworthiness, etc., in order to lead us to despair of self; and Satan tries to use these same things to make us despair of Christ.
When I think of myself, of all that I have done and been, and of what I am, I might well despair if one jot or tittle of my salvation depended on myself, but the precious gospel assures me that Another has undertaken and accomplished the mighty work for me. He loved me, though He knew well that nothing but His own death and the cleansing of His precious blood could make me fit for Himself or for God. Everything in me was so bad and worthless that I deserved to die, and yet His love was so great that He died for me.
Doubts and fears arise from the fact of looking to find something in self to build on. Some look within for experiences, some for feelings of joy and peace, and some for faith. This is not looking simply and only TO CHRIST. It is really looking to find some token of salvation in self, instead of believing God’s testimony about His Son, and finding an object of faith, outside self altogether, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
My experiences are often very poor: my feelings [p. 10] are not always what I should like them to be, and my faith is weak enough, but MY SAVIOUR is crowned with glory and honour at God’s right hand, and He is altogether worthy of my heart’s confidence. I cannot trust myself, my feelings, or my faith, but I can trust HIM, and this is the faith that saves. “Whosoever believeth IN HIM shall receive remission of sins”, Acts 10: 43. May God give you to see that in your salvation you must be nothing but a lost sinner, and CHRIST must be everything.
Many a converted man who has joyful seasons in thinking of the love of God and the Person of Jesus, has times of wavering and doubt when he thinks of his sins. When the great white throne rises up before him, and he thinks of the day of judgment, there is an inward tremor lest after all it should not go well with him.
Now the full gospel of the grace of God removes all such fears, whether temporary or chronic, because it shows how all the believer’s sins have been put away at the cross after being judged in the Person of Christ, so that every believer stands where judgment can never come. I trust to be able to show you from Scripture that every question of sin and judgment has been settled for the believer by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, and God can never raise those questions again with us who believe on his Son.
You cannot have true
PEACE WITH GOD,
or the proper enjoyment of His grace, until you see this. There is a most beautiful view of the Bay of Naples from the summit of Vesuvius, but some people who ascend the mountain do not enjoy the view. Why? Because it is a volcano, and there are strange rumbling noises, and quiverings of the earth, and from deep within the mountain’s burning breast comes hot sulphurous smoke, and people doubt their safety.
[p. 11] They are too much occupied with thoughts of their own danger to enjoy the beautiful scenery; and I am sure you cannot enjoy the magnificent panorama of divine grace and glory which is spread out in the Holy Scriptures until you know that you are in a place of perfect and everlasting security yourself.
I remember reading a book in which the authoress described a terrific thunderstorm that she witnessed among the Alps. She said it was one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen. But it was her position that enabled her to enjoy it. She was far up on a lofty mountain peak in the calm, still air of a summer’s evening, with a cloudless sky over her head, and the storm was in the valley beneath her. The lightning seemed to be writing strange characters of fire on a background of jet, and the thunder rolled in majestic melody amongst the great mountains in their white robes of perpetual snow. She was above the storm. Perhaps the poor people in the valley were trembling for their lives and the safety of their homes. She was above the storm in perfect peace.
Now let me ask, Are you above the storm or under it? — the storm-cloud of God’s judgment charged with eternal thunders? Are you in your sins, an unbeliever in Christ? Then you are under the storm, for we read: “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God ABIDETH ON HIM”, John 3: 36. Are you a believer in Christ? Have you received Him by believing on His Name? Then I want to take you by faith up to the sunny heights of resurrection glory, where your Saviour is seated, and let you look down to the cross to see there, far beneath you,
THE STORM
that burst upon His blessed head when He took your place under judgment and in death. He was under the storm. He has endured its full violence, and He [p. 12] has come victoriously out of it, and has put you and me above it, where no thunderbolt can ever reach us.
The Lord Jesus Christ has borne and put away our sins. “Christ died for our sins”, 1 Corinthians 15: 3. He “gave himself for our sins”, Galatians 1: 4. “His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24. He “was once offered to bear the sins of many”, Hebrews 9: 28. The many are all of those who believe on His Name; not everybody. Scripture says that He died for all, and that He gave Himself a ransom for all, and that He is the propitiation for the whole world; and the Scriptures show that Christ is available for the whole race of sinners. God says, “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely”, Revelation 22: 17. All are invited: none excluded. But Scripture is careful to teach that it is the sins of those who believe which Christ bore and suffered for on the cross.
The Lord Jesus was there in that darkness which no human eye could penetrate, drinking the cup of judgment which our sins had filled. He passed through three terrible hours of soul-suffering which can never be fathomed, and then cried,
“IT IS FINISHED”.
The bitter cup was drained to its very dregs. The last burning drop was exhausted. The work was done. Done for your salvation; done as God required it to be done; and done as Christ alone could do it.
Now let me assure you that if the gospel contained no more than the fact that Christ has died, it would fail to give us perfect peace. An element of uncertainty would still remain, and our assurance would not be without a cloud. I believe the great reason why so many converted persons have not peace with God is because IN THEIR FAITH THEY HAVE NOT SEEN BEYOND THE CROSS.
They have never seen by faith
A RISEN SAVIOUR.
[p. 13] Yet THE RESURRECTION of Jesus was the prominent theme of the apostles’ testimony. If we read that Jesus our Lord “was delivered for our offences”, it is added “AND WAS RAISED AGAIN for our justification”, Romans 4: 25. The Holy Spirit says, “Christ that died, YEA RATHER, THAT IS RISEN AGAIN”, Romans 8: 34. And Paul’s summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15: 3, 4, is that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and THAT HE ROSE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY according to the Scriptures.
The resurrection of Jesus proves that the sins which He bore on the cross are all put away, that the power of death is broken, that the devil is vanquished, and, in short, everything that was against us before God has been completely removed, for God has raised the One who has done it all, in glory and power from the dead, and He is the living and glorious witness to the value and completeness of His own finished work.
Behold Him as He comes into the midst of His disciples, John 20: 19. He comes, the mighty risen Saviour, from the stupendous battlefield of Calvary, with the scars of His great conflict fresh upon Him, having put away His people’s sins, having defeated all their foes, having silenced every accusing voice, and He says —
“PEACE BE UNTO YOU”.
His own living presence in resurrection dissolved every doubt, banished every fear, assured every heart, and filled every conscience with divine peace. Dear anxious soul, take these two precious words — one from the lips of a dying, and the other from those of a risen Saviour — “IT IS FINISHED” and “PEACE BE UNTO YOU”, and bind them round your heart. May they be the assurance and the stay of your soul for ever!
[p. 14] Then there is another part of your need which is plainly pointed out by the following incident. A man deeply exercised about his soul was conversing with a friend on the subject, when the friend said, Come at once to Jesus, for He will take away all your sins from your back. Yes, I am aware of that, said the other, but what about my back? I find I have not only sins to take away, but there is myself; what is to be done with that?
I feel sure that many who will read these lines have discovered, through grace, not only that they have committed sins, but that they have an evil nature. You have found out to your sorrow that when you would do good, evil was present with you, Romans 7: 21. Distinct from the sins of which you may have been guilty, your nature is evil. It is important to observe the distinction between SIN and SINS. In Scripture the principle of evil in man is called SIN, and the evil actions which he does are called SINS. One is the tree and the other is the fruit. Sin is man’s natural state. You have not to commit some crime or do some wicked action to become a sinner. Every child of Adam’s race is born in sin, Psalm 51: 5; and as such is a child of wrath, Ephesians 2: 3. “The wages of SIN is death”, Romans 6: 23. Altogether apart from any question as to the number or the magnitude of your actual transgressions, death is your portion as one descended from Adam.
The flesh — the carnal nature which we possess as children of Adam — has no good thing in it. From centre to circumference it is wholly and hopelessly bad — so bad that God does not attempt to mend it. The work of grace in souls begins with THE NEW BIRTH. By a divine operation of the Holy Spirit in connection with the word of God the subject of grace is “born again”. God — so to speak — rejects the old material altogether, and begins entirely anew. The [p. 15] very fact that a man must be born again proves that as in the flesh he is utterly unfit for God.
It is an immense step in our progress towards deliverance when we identify ourselves with that which has been wrought in us by God. This point is reached in Romans 7: 15 - 17. “Now then it is no more I that do it, but SIN that dwelleth in me”. The exercised one identifies himself with that which is of God, and judges everything of a contrary nature to be SIN. He takes sides with God, and passes judgment upon himself as in the flesh — “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing”, verse 18. The necessity for the new birth proclaimed this on God’s part, and the one born again is made to realise it experimentally.
The one who has reached this point knows the need for deliverance. SIN dwells in him: he judges that in him, that is, in his flesh dwells no good thing: evil is present with him: and though after the inward man with whom he now identifies himself, he delights in the law of God, he finds himself in helpless captivity to the law of sin which is in his members. He can only cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” He wants to be freed from all that he is linked with as a child of Adam. Thank God! through Jesus Christ our Lord such a deliverance is possible, and the believer may enjoy it.
The seventh chapter of Romans gives us an outline of the experience of one born anew who is finding out under law the terrible consequences of being linked with Adam. The eighth chapter is the unfolding of Christian liberty, enjoyed by one who knows what it is to be “in Christ Jesus”, and who has been made free from “the law of sin and death” by “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”. It is not my intention to enter into the large and blessed subject of deliverance, which is a subject in advance of my [p. 16] present theme, but to point out that in the death of Christ the root has been dealt with as well as the fruit. “Our old man has been crucified with him”. (Romans 6:6) It is of immense importance for every Christian to know that “our old man” has been fully judged and ended before God. NOT CHANGED OR FORGIVEN, BUT UTTERLY CONDEMNED IN THE DEATH OF CHRIST. “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”, Romans 8: 3. Where sin brought us, love brought Christ — even to death; and His death is the end before God of all that we were as children of Adam — men in the flesh.
Then, on the other hand, we learn that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We have life in One who is risen from the dead. We did belong to the race of which Adam was head; but the death of Christ is, in God’s reckoning, the termination of our history in that character. We now belong to a race the Head of which is Christ risen. We have been transferred by divine grace from Adam to Christ.
Oh! believer, let these marvellous truths enter the depths of thy soul! Why, if Christ bore my sins; if the judgment which those sins deserved fell upon Him; if I, as a child of Adam and a man in the flesh, died with Christ; there never can by any possibility be any judgment for me. Everything about me that should be judged — my sins and the evil nature that committed them — has been judged, once for all, at the cross. Christ went down under divine judgment and into death; was buried; and has come up again in resurrection; and just as the children of Israel saw the Egyptians all dead on the shore of the Red Sea, I can see at the cross A PERFECT CLEARANCE before God of everything that could bring judgment upon me.
“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ”, but this, for the believer, is for manifestation and to receive reward, not for condemnation. Everything [p. 17] in our history will come out there, but this will enhance the sense of the value of Christ’s work in our hearts. As we sing —
Then, Lord, shall I fully know —
Not till then — how much I owe.
The following scriptures prove that there will be no condemnation for the believer: John 3: 18; John 5: 24; Romans 8: 33, 34; 1 John 4: 17.
Christ has risen in triumph from the grave. He is for ever beyond death and judgment, and He is the life of every believer. By faith we see that blessed One raised, ascended, glory-crowned, and seated on the very throne which He has vindicated with His blood, and while we gaze on Him with wondering and adoring eyes, the Holy Spirit speaks to our souls, saying, “AS HE IS, SO ARE WE IN THIS WORLD”, 1 John 4: 17. Not only has Christ taken our place in death and judgment, but we have Him as our life, and His place of acceptance and favour before God is ours. We are “accepted in the Beloved”, Ephesians 1: 6.
Once we stood in condemnation,
Waiting thus the sinner’s doom,
Christ in death has wrought salvation,
God has raised Him from the tomb.Now we see in Christ’s acceptance
But the measure of our own;
Him who lay beneath our sentence,
Seated high upon the throne.