by William Reid (1814-1896)
Table Of Contents
Preface
I. Forgiveness Of Sins Through The Blood Of Jesus
II. How Our Sins Are Taken Away By The Blood Of Jesus
III. The Blood Of Jesus, Not Conviction Of Sin, the Foundation Of Our Peace And Joy
IV. A Letter About The Blood Of Jesus
V. Salvation Through The Blood Of Jesus, The Gift Of God
VI. The Blood Of Jesus, Our Only Ground Of Peace With God
VII. Regeneration Through The Blood Of Jesus
VIII. Faith In The Blood Of Jesus Essential To Salvation
IX. The Blood Of Jesus The Believer’s Life And Peace
X. Faith In The Blood Of Jesus The Spring Of Holiness
XI. The Blood Of Jesus The Essence Of The Gospel
XII. The Holy Spirit’s Testimony To The Blood Of Jesus
PREFACE
“I have been religiously inclined from my earliest years. When quite little I was wont to say my prayers many times over, for I had heard it said that everything done on earth was written down in heaven, and I wished to have as much as possible recorded there in my favour.
“When about ten years of age, I heard that there were some who did not believe that the Bible was the Word of God, and that led me to surmise that it was not sufficiently clear that it was from God; for if He had given a revelation of His mind to man, it must have come in such a form that it would have been impossible for any person to disbelieve it. I pictured to myself that if God chose to do it, He could put up in great letters along the heavens, ‘I AM THE LORD,’ and everybody would see it and believe; and if the Bible were from Him, its revelation would be so unmistakeably clear, that it would be impossible to doubt its divine origin.
“But this was not a settled conviction; and my incipient scepticism was suddenly dissipated by a dream. I thought that I felt an intense heat; and so terrible did it ultimately become, that the heavens were rent asunder and wrapt in flames, and in the burning sky overhead I saw in large letters of fire, ‘I AM THE LORD;’ but I had at the same time a conviction that it was now too late for the persons who had been unbelieving to profit by it, and those who had not believed the Bible, speaking to them in the name of the Lord, would now find to their everlasting misery that it was true.
“Not having enjoyed an early training in Bible truth, I had many difficulties in reference to the doctrines of revelation, and especially regarding that of the Trinity. I could not comprehend whether God and Christ were one or two beings; and I was too timid at the age of twelve to ask my seniors.
“When at school I was deeply impressed with the solemnity and propriety of daily worship, and fervently wished, on returning home, to be able to have family worship; but my timidity was stronger than my convictions, and it was not attempted. Having no Christian friend to give me counsel, direction, and encouragement, my religious impressions by and by evaporated, and my character was left very much to the formative power of surrounding circumstances. But having been instructed when at school in a neighbouring town in what was right, and counselled, on leaving it, by a Christian lady of the town, as to how I ought to conduct myself on my return home, and being put in a responsible situation, I felt a moral weight upon my spirit, and gravitated towards the good, the right, and the true.
“I was much given to reading, and from having abundance of the choicest books of a historical and literary character, I was permitted to gratify my taste. The acquisition of information was my great aim. I had an ardent thirst for knowledge, and every species of works with the exception of light literature, for which I had a settled contempt, was devoured by me both day and night. Solid literature suited my disposition, and I stored my mind with useful information on a variety of subjects. I was once so engrossed with books, that when about fifteen years old I left off going to church, that I might have the quiet of the Lord’s day for reading. But this I soon discovered to be very wrong, and it was discontinued.
“In the course of years I became acquainted with the most evangelical minister in the town where I resided; and I left an eloquent preacher, whose discourses were to me only ‘a very lovely song,’ and attended the ministry of the gospel of the grace of God. This very materially changed the current of my thinking and the kind of my reading. Being naturally susceptible of religious impressions, I became serious, devout, and religious. I carried my thirst for knowledge with me into my religion, and I searched the Scriptures and read religious books with an earnestness and constancy which were absorbing. I got Fleetwood’s ‘Life of Christ’ and read it many times; and so engrossing was it that I sometimes sat reading it until two or three o’clock in the morning, without weariness. The circumstances in which I was living, and the trials which thickened over my path, were no doubt instumental in sobering my buoyant spirit and throwing me upon a course of religious duty.
“From the instructions of the pulpit, and my own reading, I soon became, in some measure, acquainted with the system of Christian doctrine; and believing that I was a real Christian because I knew about Christian truth and Christian experience, and had a liking for all that was good, I thought it was my duty to join myself to the church. I was quite able to answer all the questions that were put to me, for I was not asked, Are you born again? I was admitted, and, as a member, received the Lord’s Supper regularly. Even at that time I walked a considerable distance every Lord’s Day to attend a prayer-meeting at eight o’clock in the morning; but it was all ‘works’, for I felt as if I were acquiring extraordinary merit by the performance of this extraordinary duty. I had a real pleasure in doing well. After this I attended a Bible class, and prepared so thoroughly for it that I was able to outshine all the rest in my knowledge of the subjects which were submitted for our consideration. In order the more thoroughly to master the contents of the Scriptures, and satisfy my own mind, I set to reading the Bible with a Commentary; and after having read it with one commentary I got another, and perused it with the most assiduous earnestness and perseverance. With these helps I passed many hours in searching the Scriptures, and enjoyed it more than anything else; but it was from no love to God Himself, but simply to acquire information. I do not remember that I had a spiritual sense of sin, either before becoming a church-member, or for a number of years after doing so, and consequently I read the Bible more with my intellect than with my conscience and my heart. I wanted ‘by searching’ to ‘find out God,’ ignorant of the fact that He can be known only through our spiritual necessities. I saw the truth, as I believed, clearly enough, but never having been really convinced that I was an utterly lost sinner, I had never prayed from the heart, ‘Lord, save me, I perish!’
“But in course of years I became less satisfied with my religion and with myself; but when unhappy I did not go direct to Jesus, but, on the contrary, I tried to read myself right, or pray myself right, or work myself right, and for a time I succeeded. I was most strict in all my deportment, conscientious and exemplary; and having a factitious conscience, I felt miserable if I failed any day to read a good deal, or perform other duties. Morning calls often annoyed me, proving, as they frequently did, an interruption in my round of prescribed duty; and when I met with agreeable, intelligent friends, and went thoroughly into their conversation, I forgot all about divine things; and when I was left to myself again, after a time of forgetfulness of God, I sometimes felt that I had tremendous leeway to make up, and I set about doing it with all my might. When thus drawn away from religion, I would sometimes have a protracted season of forgetfulness of God, but it was generally followed by a season of conflict, remorse, struggling, and persevering penance. To keep up a religion on my plan was a very difficult matter, and very unsatisfactory. When I did well, read well, and stored up Scripture truth in my mind, did my duty as a Sunday-school teacher, tract-distributor, and district-visitor, and was sufficiently earnest, I felt myself all right; but if I failed in duty, I continued miserable.
“Being perfectly sincere and conscientious, consistent in my conduct, and considered truly pious by myself and others,-I waded on through this legal mire for many years; and it never occurred to me that there must be a radical defect about my religion. My heart was unsatisfied; my conscience, when in any measure awakened, was silenced by duty, but not satisfied by righteousness, nor purged from dead works by the blood of the Righteous One. My error was in believing that religion consisted in knowing, apart from realising; and my conscience not being spiritually aroused, I persevered in my delusion for about a dozen of years.
“I believe now that there was one error which I committed, which tended more than anything to keep me in my unhappy condition,-I considered my prayers so utterly unworthy to be presented to God, that instead of throwing myself in all my sinfulness and unworthiness before the throne of grace, and getting into immediate contact with the God of salvation, I employed exclusively the prayers of others. I frequently used ejaculatory prayers of my own throughout the course of the day; but when I came before God formally, I felt so utterly unworthy and unable to order my speech before Him, that I was always constrained to use the language of others; for, prayer being regarded as a meritorious duty, I felt that it must be done well in order to be accepted, and I feared to commit myself to a lengthened address to the Diving Majesty. The Holy Ghost would have helped my infirmities, and made intercession within me, but I had not the most remote conception that I might, by a believing glance of my eye towards heaven, secure His gracious aid; and so, instead of ‘praying in the Holy Ghost,’ I prayed merely in the words of my fellow-men, which sometimes met my condition, but more frequently did not, and always seemed to keep me at a distance from God, and from enjoying direct personal intercourse with ‘the Father of mercies,’ (2 Cor 1:3).
“In the unsatisfactory manner which I have just described, I wasted and lost my young years, ‘and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,’ (Mark 6:26). I had been religious, dutiful, and consistent; but it had been a mere ‘going about to establish my own righteousness’ (Rom 10:3), for my system of service ignored the central fact of Divine Revelation,-that ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,’ (1 Tim 1:15). ‘But God, who is rich in mercy,’ (Eph 2:4), had compassion on me, and by the grace of His Holy Spirit, ‘revealed His ‘Son in me,’ (Gal 1:16) and turned ‘the shadow of death into the morning,’ (Amos 5:8). The first gleam of gospel light which entered my darkened mind was in reading a little tract in which Luther’s conversion is referred to. When the words of the Creed, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins,’ were pronounced in his hearing, he took them up and repeated them on his bed of sickness; but he was told he must believe not only in the forgiveness of David’s sins or Peter’s sins, but that he must believe in the forgiveness of his own sins. This truth became the inlet of pardon and peace to his soul; and on reading it I felt that my soul was being visited with celestial light; and I was led to see that pardon of sin was a present and personal blessing. But I was not satisfied that I believed aright.
“Shortly after, I was reading Romaine’s ‘Life of Faith,’ and came upon this sentiment,-That the weakest believer is as precious to Christ and as safe as the strongest. The Dayspring from on high visited me, and, by and by, I felt myself bathed in the noon-tide radiance of Heaven’s glorious light. The great Enlightener filled my soul with His transforming presence. He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness had shined in my heart, ‘to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ I was conscious of a Divine Presence with me, and believed that the holy light which had entered my soul came direct from heaven. Christ from that moment became the great central object of my contemplation. Immediately as I became enlightened, Jesus appeared to be the centre, sun, moon, and essence of Revelation, and with Him as a key, I thought I could understand all that ever was written on the subject of religion. My spirit rejoiced in God my Saviour, and self and its services were thought on only to be condemned as utterly vile and worthless. Christ was all.
“And as my soul was filled with divine light, and glowing with the love of Jesus, I said to myself, as, in amazement, I remembered the dreary past,-‘How could I have been so blind as not to see the way of salvation when it is so clearly revealed that “Jesus Christ is all and in all, and we are complete in Him”-not “in Him” and our own doings combined-but in Him alone! The truth is as clear as the sun at noon-day, that Jesus is Himself the Sin-Bearer and the Saviour, and I and my legal duties and conscientious penances are nothing but ‘filthy rags.’ I have read it a hundred times that Jesus came ‘to seek and to save that which was lost,’ and the same truth runs through the whole Word of God, and yet I never saw it until now. Oh, how blind I have been to the glory of Jesus! How sad to think that I have read so much about Him with the veil upon my heart, and have never seen His glory as a Saviour till this blessed hour! I now wished that every one could see the Lord as I saw Him. I wondered that they did not, and I thought I could point Him out to them so clearly and distinctly, as made of God unto us ‘wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,’ that it would be impossible for them not to believe in Him, receive Him as theirs, and be filled with heavenly joy:-but I found that ‘old Adam was too strong for young Melancthon.’
“About this time I heard a sermon which I wished to get good from; but the minister was drawing to a close, and I had found nothing in all he had said to satisfy my soul, when as a concluding sentence he repeated the words, ‘Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,’ (Rom 10:4); and that was borne in upon my soul with much power of the Holy Ghost, so that I again found my heart filled with the light, life, and love of God. How clearly it appeared to me that Christ had in my stead satisfied all the demands of the law! He had filled it up with His satisfaction from one end to the other, for thus I understood His being ‘the end of the law.’ He has abolished the law as a ground of justification, by fulfilling every one of its many demands; and He allows us to begin life with a righteousness as perfect as if we had fulfilled perfectly in our own persons every iota that the law of God exacts. I had no idea of this during my years of bondage; and the consequence was, that in my blindness I presumptuously set about doing that which Christ had done for me, and which, had I gone on for ever in the same legal track, I never could have done for myself.
“When one’s eyes are opened by the Holy Ghost, how monstrous does it seem for the sinful creature to have been attempting to work out a righteousness which could be effected only by the Creator! ‘Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,’ and believing in Jesus, I found that, instead of needing to begin to fulfil the law for myself, I was privileged to begin at ‘the end of the law.’ Instead of looking forward to being able to complete the fulfilment, I found that (on believing in Jesus) what I fancied would be the termination of a life of obedience, I had now presented to me in the gospel of Christ as the point from which I was to start. To get Christ in a moment as my perfect righteousness, after going about for the best part of my past life to establish a righteousness of my own, on account of which I had vainly thought to render myself acceptable to God, that was to me ‘as life from the dead,’ (Rom 11:15).”
Is that my own experience? No, it is not mine; but the experience of another, which, having been submitted to me when about to write this preface, I considered so suitable that I have written it out, and given it as one of the most satisfactory reasons I could present for issuing the present little volume. There can be no doubt but there are many cases like the above. I fear that not a few of the strictly religious in all our churches are ignorant of the “true grace of God,” (1 Pet 5:12), which gives Jesus as “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” I fear also that, in some cases, on account of a mixture of law and gospel in public instruction, inquirers are left with the impression that they have something to do in order to obtain “justification of life,” (Rom 5:18). And when we consider the hundreds of thousands who are being awakened by the Holy Ghost throughout our own and other lands, I believe that we could not engage in a more needful service than the preparation of a work such as the present, wherein “the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, even the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe,” (Rom 3:21,22).
We sometimes hear “the claims of Christ” pressed upon sinners; but this is to confound Christ with Moses, and represent His salvation as only an amended republication of the law “given by Moses,” forgetting that “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” (John 1:17). “The gospel, strictly taken, contains neither claims, commands, nor threatenings, but is glad tidings of salvation to sinful men through Christ, revealed in doctrines and promises; and these revealed to men as sinners, stout-hearted, and far from righteousness. In the good news from heaven of help in God through Jesus Christ, for lost, self-destroyed creatures of Adam’s race, there are no precepts. All these, the command to believe and repent not excepted, belong to and flow from the law.1 The gospel is the report of a peace purchased by the BLOOD OF CHRIST for poor sinners, and offered to them.2 The gospel brings a sound of liberty to captives, of pardon to condemned criminals, of peace to rebels, a sound of life to the dead, and of salvation to them that lie on the borders of hell and condemnation. 3 It is not, indeed, the gospel of itself, but Christ revealed therein, that heals the sinner. It is Christ that is to be received; but He is received as offered in the gospel, and the gospel holds out Christ to the eye of faith. The gospel is with respect to Christ what the pole was with respect to the serpent.” 4
The gospel does not therefore urge upon us claims which we cannot implement, but it places before us the free grace of God in Christ Jesus, and permits us to claim the Son of God as our Redeemer, and through Him to enjoy “all things” pertaining to the life of faith and the hope of glory. We are asked to give God nothing for salvation. He is the great Giver. Our proper position is to stand before Him as beggars in the attitude of receiving. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).
The Gospel of the grace of God does not consist in pressing the duty defined by the words, “Give your heart to Christ,” although that is often unwisely pressed upon inquirers after salvation as if it were the gospel; but the very essence of the gospel is contained in the words, “Having liberty to enter into the holiest BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an high-priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,” (Heb. 10:19-22).
“Give your heart to Christ,” is rather law than gospel. It is most proper that it should be done, for God himself demands it; but merely urging the doing of it is far short of the gospel. The true gospel is: Accept the free gift of salvation from wrath and sin by receiving Jesus Himself, and all the benefits He purchased with “HIS OWN BLOOD” (Acts 20:28), and your heart will be His in a moment, being given to Him, not as a matter of law, but of love; for, if you have the love of His heart poured into yours by His blessed Spirit, you will feel yourself under the constraining influence of a spontaneous spiritual impulse to give Him in return your heart, and all that you possess. It is right to give Him your heart, but unless you first receive His, you will never give Him yours.
The design of the following pages is to exhibit “the true grace of God” “without the works of the law,” and only “by THE BLOOD OF JESUS,” (Heb 10:19). Our great aim is the glory of Christ in the conversion of souls; and the means employed to accomplish that end are simple statements concerning the great Scripture truth, that we are saved at once, entirely, and for ever, by the grace of God “who is rich in mercy,” and that we have no part at all in the matter of our salvation save the beggar’s part, of accepting it as a “free gift,” procured for us by “THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST,” (1 Pet 1:19).
And, as many are struggling to get up something of their own as a price to bring to God to buy salvation of Him, we have taken pains to shew the entire uselessness of all such efforts; and have pointed out, we think, with some degree of clearness, and by a variety of ways, that all true religion has a distinct beginning, and that beginning dates from the time when a sinner stands at Calvary conscious of his utterly ruined condition, and realises the truth that Jesus so completely satisfied God for sin, that He could say before He gave up the ghost, “It is finished,” (John 19:30); so that “we have redemption through HIS BLOOD, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace,” (Eph 1:8). “He His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,” (1 Pet 2:24), and thereby, “having made peace by THE BLOOD OF HIS CROSS,” (Col 1:20), we may at once be “made nigh by THE BLOOD OF CHRIST,” (Eph 2:13), without anything of our own. That God who hath set Him forth, “a propitiation through faith in HIS BLOOD, to declare His righteousness” (Rom 3:25) in pardoning sin, will pardon ALL sin through faith in Him, for His own testimony is, that “THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST His Son cleanseth us from all sin,” (1 John 1:7).
“THE BLOOD OF JESUS” is the ground of peace with God to every believing sinner below, and it will be the subject of the everlasting song of the redeemed above. It is our ALL for acceptance with God, for pardon of sin, for “justification of life,” for adoption into God’s family, for holiness and glory. As the altar with its streaming blood stood at the very entrance of the ancient tabernacle, so the Lord Jesus Christ and “THE BLOOD OF HIS CROSS” meet us at the very entrance of the church of the redeemed. The blood-shedding of Jesus as “a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2) lies at the very threshold of the Christian life. It is the alphabet of Christian experience to know the value of “THE BLOOD OF SPRINKLING,” (Heb 12:24). The first step in the Christian course is into the “fountain opened,” (Zech 13:1).
“THE BLOOD OF JESUS” is our great and only theme in the following pages. May the Divine Spirit make them to every reader “the power of God unto salvation,” (Rom 1:16).
In closing these prefatory pages, the writer may remark, that although it would have been both easy and delightful to have written it wholly himself, he has purposely introduced extracts from various writers belonging to different sections of the Church of Christ-Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, &c., that the anxious inquirer may enjoy the benefit of having saving truth presented to him in a variety of aspects, and may, at the same time, feel the moral effect of observing the perfect agreement of Spirit-taught Christians, in the different branches of the Church of Christ, with regard to the one way of a sinner’s acceptance with God, “BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS.”
It is again issued with the earnest prayer that the Holy Spirit would so bless it to all inquirers who read it, that they may “enter into the holiest by THE BLOOD OF JESUS,” (Heb 10:19), and learn to sing, “with joyful lips,” the redemption-song:-”Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His OWN BLOOD, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen,” (Rev 1:5,6).
William Reid
3 George Square, Edinburgh.
January 1863.
I. FORGIVENESS OF SINS
THROUGH THE BLOOD OF JESUS
The God of love, dear reader, in His written Word, which gives an account of the rich mercy He has provided for the guilty, tells you that you may be saved. His Word assures you that you may be saved from guilt, sin, and wrath. And that Word also informs you that your salvation depends not on anything you may do, but on what God has already done. Good news about God has reached our world, and in believing these glad tidings, you shall be saved. This is the good news, “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” (Rom 5:8). “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” (John 3:16). “Christ died for the ungodly,” (Rom 5:6). “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,” (2 Cor 5:21). If, by simply believing the good news about what God through Christ hath done for sinners, we become “partakers of Christ” (Heb 3:14), and are “accepted in the Beloved,” (Eph 1:6), it will become matter of personal consciousness and spiritual joy that “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace,” (Eph 1:7). “Be it known unto you therefore, 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).
I beseech you to settle it in your mind that “forgiveness of sins” (Acts 13:38) lies at the very threshold of the Christian life. It is a blessing needed and obtainable now. You must have forgiveness, or perish for ever; you must have it now, or you cannot have peace. It is surely a most delightful thought that you may have the guilt of all your past sins blotted out at once and for ever! God pardons freely and at once. He does not inculcate any preparation in order to pardon. One who knew the blessedness of enjoying His pardoning mercy testifies thus concerning it: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness;” and this testimony was given on the ground of what he had affirmed in the same letter, that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,” (1 John 1:7,9). He does not say: After you have repented more thoroughly, after you have spent days and weeks in agonising prayer, after you become more thoroughly instructed in divine things, and after you pass through years of “trouble and sorrow,” then you may venture to hope for forgiveness. No; but, knowing that Christ died to put away sin, you are warranted, on simply taking the place of a sinner, and accepting of Jesus as your Saviour, to believe that, through the all-perfect merits of Christ, you are pardoned that very moment, and enjoy perfect peace with God; for God “justifieth the ungodly,” (Rom 4:5).
Peace with God through the forgiveness of all your sins may thus be obtained at any moment, seeing that you do not have to repent for it, work for it, or wait for it, but simply believe what God says regarding Christ “having made peace by the blood of His cross,” (Col 1:20). “And being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” (Rom 3:24)-and being fully satisfied that your sin has been forgiven you in a righteous way, being put away by “the precious blood of Christ,” (1 Pet 1:19)-God being “well pleased for His righteousness’ sake,” (Isa 42:21)-”just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus,” (Rom 3:26)-”peace that passeth all understanding” (Phil 4:7) will spring up spontaneously within your soul, like the fresh, flowing current of a perennial fountain.
In reference to the pardon of your sins, there is no time to be lost, for “the Holy Ghost saith, To-day,” (Heb 3:7); and were you now refusing to listen, and dying in your sins ere to-morrow’s sun arose, you would inevitably perish eternally, notwithstanding your conviction of sin, and anxieties of soul; for Jesus Himself assures us that “he that believeth not shall be damned,” (Mark 16:16). Besides, you can do nothing else that will prove satisfactory to yourself, or well-pleasing to God, until you have obtained the forgiveness of your sins. And as pardon of sin is the first thing that you feel in need of, so it is the first thing which is presented by the God of love for your acceptance; for God is still to be found “in Christ reconciling sinners unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,” (2 Cor 5:19).
Moreover, you will have your whole life and character affected in a most striking way by the scripturalness or unscripturalness of the views you now entertain of “the God of all grace,” (1 Pet 5:10), and the heartiness or hesitance with which you embrace His pardoning mercy. As a man’s position in the world is very materially affected by the character of his elementary education and early training, so is the position of even true believers in Christ materially affected not only in this world, but in the world to come, by their being thoroughly grounded or not grounded in the great elementary truths of the gospel of the grace of God, which preaches present pardon and immediate peace “to every one that believeth,” (Rom 1:16). Your position, as well as destiny for time and for eternity, are now to be determined!
It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that you should have thoroughly scriptural views and an intelligent experience of the grace of God as it is manifested to you, a sinner, in the person and work of His Son Jesus Christ. And again, the character of your service for God, and your success in winning souls, will very greatly depend upon the clearness with which you realise your own salvation through the blood of Christ at the commencement of your Christian course; for how could you labour faithfully to bring others to feel the constraining power of the love of Christ, unless you yourself felt assured that He had loved you personally and put away your sin? The most useful life must ever be that which is firmly based on a knowledge of Christ crucified as the sole ground of acceptance with God, and on being justified, and having peace “through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us,” (1 Thess 5:9,10). It will be found that those who do most for God and their fellow-sinners are such as he. Rev. Robert M’Cheyne, who knew himself to be forgiven by God and safe for eternity-of whom his biographer says, that “he walked calmly in almost unbroken fellowship with the FATHER and the SON”; and who himself thus describes his own undoubted conversion in the only record he has left of it:-
“When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see-
Jehovah Tsidkenu5 my Saviour must be.
“My terrors all vanish’d before the sweet name,
My guilty fears banish’d, with boldness I came
To drink at the Fountain, life-giving and free-
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.”
II. HOW OUR SINS ARE TAKEN
AWAY BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS
There is every reason why you should now intelligently and believingly behold the Lamb of God, “which taketh away the sin of the world,” (John 1:29). You are not directed in this passage to a Saviour who has already “taken away the sin of the world,” but to Him who “taketh away the sin of the world.” The meaning plainly is, that Jesus is the God-appointed Taker-away of sin for the world. We find him asserting this, when He says, “The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,” (Matt 9:6); “All power” (or authority) “is given me in heaven and on earth,” (Matt 28:18). Jesus is the only and the all-sufficient, as He is the authorized, Taker-away of sin, for the world at large. The whole world is brought in guilty before God, “for all have sinned,” (Rom 3:23); and the true gospel of God is, that when any one belonging to our sinful world feels his sin to be oppressive, and comes straight to “the Lamb of God” with it, and frankly acknowledges it, and tells out his anxieties regarding it, and his desire to get rid of it, he will find that Jesus has both the power and the will to take it away; and on seeing it removed from him by “the blood of His cross,” (Col 1:20), “as far as the east is from the west,” (Psa 103:12), he will be enabled to sing with a grateful heart and “joyful lips:”-
“I lay my sins on Jesus,
The spotless Lamb of God;
He bears them all, and frees us,
From the accursed load.”
You can never make an atonement for your past sins, nor by personal obedience procure a title to the inheritance of glory; but Jesus is willing to take away all your sins, and to give you His own title to the glorious kingdom, if you will only consent to intrust Him alone with your salvation.
“Well,” you may perhaps resolve, “I will go to Him, and cast myself upon His mercy, and if I perish, I perish.” Ah, but you need not go to Him in that spirit, for it throws a doubt upon the all-sufficiency of His completed atonement for sin, and His perfect, spotless life of obedience.
Jesus Himself says, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” (John 3:16). These being the “true sayings of God,” (Rev 19:9), where, O friend, is there the least cause for you saying, with hesitancy and doubt, “If I perish, I perish?” (Esther 4:16). The proper thought you ought to have in reference to the glorious Gospel is this-God has so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son to die for sinners, and He assures me that if I, a perishing sinner, believe in Him, I shall not perish, but have everlasting life; I believe His Word, and reckon that if He gave His Son to die for us when we were yet sinners, He will with Him also freely give all such things as pardon and purity, grace and glory; and if, in accordance with His own gracious invitation, I rest my soul upon His manisfested love in Christ Jesus, I believe that it will be as impossible for me to perish, as for God to change His nature, or to cancel the word of grace and truth, that the “blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin,” (1 John 1:7).
God the Father loved sinners so much as to send Jesus to die for them. Jesus loved sinners so much as to lay down His life for their redemption. The Holy Spirit loved sinners so much that he has written a record of God’s manifested love to them in Jesus Christ, and He Himself has come down in person, to reveal that love to their souls, that they may be saved. And if you, O anxious one, will now agree to God’s method of transferring all that Divine justice demands of you to Jesus, “who was made of a woman, made under the law,” who perfectly obeyed and pleased the Father in His holy life, and in death endured and exhausted the penalty due to sin, you will obtain pardon, peace, grace, and holiness; the full tide of the love of God, which passeth knowledge, will flow into your soul, and, in the spirit of adoption, you will cry, “Abba, Father,” (Gal 4:6), feel the constraining influence of the love of Christ, and live to the glory of “Him who died for us and rose again.”
That I may make the method of a sinner’s salvation so “plain, that he that readeth it” (Hab 2:2) may have his mind’s eye so full of its meaning, “that he may run” at once to Jesus Christ, as his Divine sin-bearer, I will present the following homely and unmistakeable illustration:-While standing one day on the platform of the Aberdeen Station of the North-Eastern Railway, I observed a carriage with a board on it intimating that it ran all the way from Aberdeen to London. The doors of it were open, the porters were putting passengers’ luggage on the top of it, and a few individuals were entering, or about to enter, its different compartments. They looked for this particular carriage as soon as they had passed through the ticket-office, and on seeing “London” on it, they threw in their travelling-rugs, entered, and seating themselves, prepared for the journey.
Having furnished themselves with tickets and railway guides, and satisfied themselves that they were in the right carriage, they felt the utmost confidence, and I did not observe any one of them coming out of the carriage, and running about in a state of excitement, calling to those around them, “Am I right? Am I right?”
Nor did I see any one refusing to enter, because the carriage provided for only a limited number to proceed by that train. There might be 80,000 inhabitants in and around the city; but still there was not one who talked of it as absurd to provide accommodation for only about seventy persons, for practically it was found to be perfectly sufficient. Trains leave the city several times a-day, and it is found that one carriage for London in the train is quite sufficient for the number of passengers; and on the particular day to which I now refer, I noticed, that so ample was the accommodation, that one of the passengers had a whole compartment to himself. The carriage is for the whole city and neighbourhood, but carries only such of the inhabitants as come and seat themselves in it from day to day.
God, in His infinite wisdom, has made provision of a similar kind for our lost world. He has provided a train of grace to carry as many of its inhabitants to heaven, the great metropolis of the universe, as are willing to avail themselves of the gracious provision.
When we call you by the preaching of the gospel, the meaning is, that all who will may come, and passing through the booking-office of justification by faith alone, seat themselves in a carriage marked, “From Guilt to Glory.” Whenever you hear the free and general offer of salvation, you need not stand revolving the question in your own mind, “Is it for me?”-for just as the railway company carry all who comply with their printed regulations, irrespective of moral character, so if you come to the station of grace at the advertised time, which is “now,”-for “Behold now is the accepted time,” (2 Cor 6:2),-you will find the train of salvation ready; and the only regulation to be complied with by you, in order to your being carried by it, is that you consent to let the Lord Jesus Christ charge Himself with paying for your seat,-which cannot surely be anything but an easy and desirable arrangement, seeing you have no means of paying for yourself.
Were you coming to the railway-station with no money in your pocket, and anxious to travel by a train about to start, in order to be put in possession of a valuable inheritance left to you by a friend; and were any one to meet you at the door of the ticket-office, and say, “I will pay your fare for you,” you would not feel anything but the utmost satisfaction in complying with such a regulation; and is it not an easy matter for you on coming to the station of mercy to submit to the regulation of the gospel, to let Jesus pay your fare for the train of grace, that you may take your seat with confidence, and be carried along the new and living way to everlasting glory?
If we want to know the gospel and be saved, we must know Jesus as our Sin-bearer; for Christ crucified is the sum of the gospel and the richness of it. Paul was so taken with Jesus that nothing sweeter than Jesus could drop from his pen and lips. It is observed that he hath the word JESUS five hundred times in his epistles.
“Jesus” was his constant subject of meditation, and out of the good treasure of the heart his mouth spoke and his pen wrote. He felt that Christ was made of God unto him “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,” (1 Cor 1:30), and glorying in the Lord and in His cross, he determined not to know anything among those to whom he preached and wrote, “save Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” (1 Cor 2:2). That faith which is not built on a dying Christ is but a perilous dream: God awaken all from it that are in it!
“Christ alone is our salvation-
Christ the rock on which we stand;
Other than this sure foundation,
Will be found but sinking sand.
Christ, His Cross and resurrection,
Is alone the sinner’s plea;
At the throne of God’s perfection,
Nothing else can set him free.
“We have all things, Christ possessing;
Life eternal, second birth;
Present pardon, peace, and blessing,
While we tarry here on earth;
And by faith’s anticipation,
Foretastes of the joy above,
Freely given us with salvation,
By the Father in His love.
“When we perfect joy shall enter,
‘Tis in Him our bliss will rise;
He’s the essence, soul, and centre,
Of the glory in the skies:
In redemption’s wondrous story,
(Plann’d before our parents’ fall),
From the Cross unto the Glory,
Jesus Christ is all in all.”
III. THE BLOOD OF JESUS, NOT CONVICTION OF SIN, THE FOUNDATION OF OUR PEACE AND JOY
If the Holy Ghost be awakening you to a true apprehension of your danger as a rebel against God’s authority,-a guilty, polluted, hell-deserving sinner,-you must be in a deeply anxious state of mind, and such questions as these must be ever present with you:-”What must I do to be saved? What is the true ground of a sinner’s peace with God? What am I to believe in order to be saved?” Well, in so far as laying the foundation of your reconciliation is concerned, I wish you to observe that you have nothing to do; for the Almighty Surety of sinners said on Calvary, “It is finished,” (John 19:30). Jesus has done all that the Holy Jehovah deemed necessary to be done to insure complete pardon, acceptance, and salvation to all who believe in His name. If you take Jesus as your Saviour, you will build securely for eternity. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” (1 Cor 3:11). He is the foundation-stone of salvation laid by God Himself, and on His finished atoning work alone you are instructed to rest the salvation of your soul, and not on anything accomplished by you, wrought in you, felt by you, or proceeding from you.
It is of the utmost importance to be clear as to the fact that it is the work of Christ without you, and not the work of the Spirit within you, that must form the sole ground of your deliverance from guilt and wrath, and of peace with God. You must beware of resting your peace on your feelings, convictions, tears, repentance, prayers, duties, or resolutions. You must begin with receiving Christ, and not make that the termination of a course of fancied preparation. Christ must be the Alpha and Omega. He must be EVERYTHING in our salvation, or He will be nothing. Beware lest you fall into the common mistake of supposing that you will be more welcome and accepted of Christ if you are brought through a terrible process of “law-work.” You are as welcome to Christ now as you will ever be. Wait not for deeper convictions of sin, for why should you prefer conviction to Christ? And you would not have one iota more safety though you had deeper convictions of sin than any sinner ever had. “Convictions of sin are precious; but they bring no safety, no peace, no salvation, no security, but war, and storm, and trouble. It is well to be awakened from sleep when danger is hanging over us; but to awake from sleep is not to escape from danger. It is only to be sensible of danger, nothing more.
In like manner, to be convinced of your sins is merely to be made sensible that your soul is in danger. It is no more. It is not deliverance. Of itself, it can bring no deliverance; it tells of no Saviour. It merely tells us that we need one. Yet there are many who, when they have had deep convictions of sin, strong terrors of the law, congratulate themselves as if all were well. They say, “Ah, I have been convinced of sin; I have been under terrors; it is well with me; I am safe.” Well with you? Safe? Is it well with the seaman when he awakes and finds his vessel going to pieces upon the rocks amid the fury of the whelming surge? Is it well with the sleeper when he awakes at midnight amid the flames of his dwelling? Does he say, “Ah, it is well with me; I have seen the flames?” In this way sinners are not unfrequently led to be content with some resting-place short of the appointed one. Anxiety to have deep convictions, and contentment with them after they have been experienced, are too often the means which Satan uses for turning away the sinner’s eye from the perfect work of Jesus, who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Our peace with God, our forgiveness, our reconciliation, flow wholly from the sin-atoning sacrifice of Jesus.
Behold, then, O Spirit-convinced soul, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world! In His death upon the cross, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world! In His death upon the cross, behold the mighty sacrifice, the ransom for the sins of many! See there the sum of all His obedience and sufferings! Behold the finished work!-a work of stupendous magnitude, which He alone could have undertaken and accomplished! Behold our sacrifice, our finished sacrifice, our perfected redemption, the sole foundation of our peace, and hope, and joy. “He His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,” (1 Pet 2:24). It is not said that our duties, or our prayers, or our fastings, or our convictions of sin, or our repentance, or our honest life, or our almsdeeds, or our fatih, or our grace-it is not said that these bore our sins; it was Jesus, Jesus Himself, Jesus alone, Jesus, and none but Jesus, “bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” Rest, then, in nothing short of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Christ has done the mighty work;
Nothing left for us to do,
But to enter on His toil,
Enter on His triumph too.
“His the labour, ours the rest;
His the death, and ours the life;
Ours the fruits of victory,
His the agony and strife.”
IV. A LETTER ABOUT THE BLOOD OF JESUS
“I urge you,” wrote an eminent author6 to a dying man, “I urge you to cast yourself at once, in the simplest faith, upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. All your true preparation for death is entirely out of yourself, and in the Lord Jesus. Washed in His blood, and clothed upon with His righteousness, you may appear before God divinely, fully, freely, and for ever accepted. The salvation of the chief of sinners is all prepared, finished, and complete in Christ, (Eph 1:6; Col 2:10). Again, I repeat, your eye of faith must now be directed entirely out of and from yourself to JESUS. Beware of looking for any preparation to meet death in yourself. It is all in Christ. God does not accept you on the ground of a broken heart-or a clean heart-or a praying heart-or a believing heart. He accepts you wholly and entirely on the ground of the ATONEMENT of His blessed Son. Cast yourself, in childlike faith, upon that atonement-‘Christ dying for the ungodly,’ (Rom 5:6)-and you are saved! Justification is a poor, law-condemned, self-condemned, self-destroyed sinner, wrapping himself by faith in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘which is unto all, and upon all them that believe,’ (Rom 3:22). He, then, is justified, and is prepared to die, and he only, who casts from him the garment of his own righteousnesss, and runs into this blessed ‘City of Refuge’-the Lord Jesus-and hides himself there from the ‘revenger of blood,’ exclaiming, in the language of triumphant faith, ‘There is NOW NO CONDEMNATION to them that are in Christ Jesus,’ (Rom 8:1). Look to Jesus, then, for a contrite heart-look to Jesus for a clean heart-look to Jesus for a believing heart-look to Jesus for a loving heart-and Jesus will give you all.
“One faith’s touch of Christ, and one divine touch from Christ, will save the vilest sinner. Oh, the dimmest, most distant glance of faith, turning its languid eye upon Christ, will heal and save the soul. God is prepared to accept you in His blessed Son, and for His sake He will cast all your sins behind His back, and take you to glory when you die. Never was Jesus known to reject a poor sinner that came to Him empty and with ‘nothing to pay.’ God will glorify His free grace in your salvation, and will therefore save you, just as you are, ‘without money and without price,’ (Isa 55:1). I close with Paul’s reply to the anxious jailer, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ (Acts 16:31). No matter what you have been, or what you are, plunge into the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness,’ (Zech 8:1), and you shall be clean, ‘washed whiter than snow,’ (Psa 51:7). Heed no suggestion of Satan, or of unbelief. Cast yourself at the feet of Jesus, and if you perish, perish there! Oh no! perish you never will, for He hath said, ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,’ (John 6:37). ‘Come unto ME,’ (Matt 11:28), is His blessed invitation; let your reply be, ‘Lord, I come! I come! I come! I entwine my feeble, trembling arms of faith around Thy cross, around Thyself, and if I die, I will die, cleaving, clinging, looking unto Thee!’ So act and believe, and you need not fear to die. Looking at the Saviour in the face, you can look at death in the face, exclaiming with good old Simeon, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,’ (Luke 2:29). May we, through rich, free, and sovereign grace, meet in heaven, and unite together in exclaiming, ‘Worthy is the Lamb; for He was slain for us!’” (Rev 5:12).
“How glorious is THY NAME,
Through all the ransom’d host,
O WORTHY LAMB, who came,
To seek and save the lost!
“Thou art, beyond compare,
Most precious in our sight!
Than sons of men more fair,
And infinite in might!
“Thy perfect work divine,
Makes us for ever blest;
Here truth and mercy shine,
And men with God do rest.”
V. SALVATION THROUGH THE BLOOD OF JESUS, THE GIFT OF GOD
Dear Reader,-As I am anxious that the one grand theme-salvation through the blood-shedding of Jesus alone-should be set before you in a variety of aspects, that, if you miss it in one, you may realise it in another, I would now present it as a gift of grace. “For by grace are ye saved,” (Eph 2:8). “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” (Rom 6:23). “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” (John 3:16). “Here,” says one of the English Reformers, “God, who is infinite and unspeakable, gives after such a manner as passeth all things. For that which He gives He gives not as the wages of desert, but of mere love. This sort of giving, which has its spring in love, makes this gift more excellent and precious. And the words of Christ are plain that God loveth us. And as God, the Giver, is exceedingly great, so is the gift that He giveth, which is His only Son. Let us understand that God is not said to be angry with the world, but to love it in that He gave His Son for it. God is merciful to us and loveth us, and of very love gave His Son unto us, that we should not perish, but have everlasting life. And as God giveth by love and mercy, so do we take and receive by faith and not otherwise. Faith only-that is, trust in the mercy and grace of God-is the very hand by which we take this gift. This gift is given to make us safe from death and sin. And it is bestowed upon the world, and the world signifies all mankind. Why shouldest thou not suffer thyself to be of this name, seeing that Christ with plain words saith, that God gave not His Son only for Mary, Peter, and Paul, but for the world, that all should receive Him that are the sons of men? Then if thou or I should receive Him as if He did not appertain to us, truly it would consequently follow that Christ’s words are not true, whereas He saith He was given and delivered for the world. Wherefore hereof appears that the contrary thereto is most assuredly true, that this gift belongs as well unto thee as to Peter and Paul, forasmuch as thou also art a man as they were, and a portion of the world…
“Whatsoever I am, God is not to be taken as unfaithful to His promise. I am a portion of the world; wherefore if I take not this gift as mine, I make God untrue. But thou wilt say, ‘Why does He not shew this to me alone? Then I would believe and think surely that it appertained to me.’ But it is for a great consideration that God speaks here so generally, to the intent, verily, that no man should think that he is excluded from this promise and gift. He that excludes himself must give an account why he does so. ‘I will not judge them,’ saith He, ‘but they shall be judged of their own mouth’…We are saved, then, only by the mercy of God, and we obtain this grace only by faith, without virtue, without merits, and without works. For the whole matter, that is necessary to the getting of everlasting life and remission of sins, is altogether and fully comprehended in the love and mercy of God through Christ.”7
“Blessed be God our God!
Who gave for us His well-beloved Son,
His gift of gifts, all other gifts in one.
Blessed be God our God!
“He spared not His Son!
‘Tis this that silences each rising fear,
‘Tis this that bids the hard thought disappear;
He spared not His Son!”
“I must say,” wrote Dr Chalmers in a letter to a friend, “that I never had so close and satisfactory a view of the gospel salvation as when I have been led to contemplate it in the light of a simple offer on the one side, and a simple acceptance on the other. It is just saying to one and all of us, ‘There is forgiveness through the blood of my Son: take it;’- and whoever believes the reality of the offer takes it. It is not in any shape the reward of our own services;…it is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is not given because you are worthy to receive it, but because it is a gift worthy of our kind and reconciled Father to bestow. We are apt to stagger at the greatness of the unmerited offer, and cannot attach faith to it till we have made up some title of our own. This leads to two mischievous consequences. It keeps alive the presumption of one class of Christians, who will still be thinking that it is something in themselves and of themselves which confers upon them a right to salvation, and it confirms the melancholy of another class, who look into their own hearts and their own lives, and find that they cannot make out a shadow of a title to the divine favour. The error of both lies in their looking to themselves when they should be looking to the Saviour. ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’
“The Son of man was so lifted up that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life, (John 3:14,15). It is your part simply to lay hold of the proffered boon. You are invited to do so; you are entreated to do so; nay, what is more, you are commanded to do so. It is true you are unworthy, and without holiness no man can see God; but be not afraid, only believe! You cannot get holiness of yourself, but Christ has undertaken to provide it for you. It is one of those spiritual blessings of which He has the dispensation, and which He has promised to all who believe in Him. God has promised that with His Son He will freely give you all things, (Rom 8:32),-that He will walk in you, and dwell in you, (2 Cor 6:16),-that He will purify your heart by faith, (Acts 15:9),-that He will put His law in your heart, and write it in your mind, (Heb 8:10).
“If I were to come as an accredited agent from the upper sanctuary, with a letter of invitation to you, with your name and address on it, you would not doubt your warrant to accept it. Well, here is the Bible, your invitation to come to Christ. It does not bear your name and address, but it says ‘Whosoever’-that takes you in; it says ‘all’-that takes you in; it says if ‘any’-that takes you in. What can be surer or freer than that?”
“We glory,” says old Traill of London, “in any name of reproach of Christ that is cast upon us for asserting the absolute boundless freedom of the grace of God, which excludes all merit, and everything like it; the absoluteness of the covenant of grace, for the covenant of redemption was plainly and strictly a conditional one and the noblest of all conditions was in it. The Son of God’s taking on Him man’s nature, and offering it in sacrifice, was the strict condition of all the glory and reward promised to Christ and His seed, (Isa 53:10,11), wherein all things are freely promised, and that faith that is required for sealing a man’s interest in the covenant is promised in it, and wrought by the grace of it, (Eph 2:8). That faith at first is wrought by, and acts upon, a full and absolute offer of Christ, and of all His fulness; an offer that hath no condition in it, but that native one to all offers, acceptance: and in the very act of this acceptance, the acceptor doth expressly disclaim all things in himself, but sinfulness and misery.
“That faith in Jesus Christ doth justify (although, by the way, it is to be noted that it is never written in the Word that faith justifieth actively, but always passively, that a man is justified by faith, and that God justifieth men by and through faith, yet admitting the phrase) only as a mere instrument, receiving that imputed righteousness of Christ for which we are justified; and that this faith, in the office of justification, is neither condition, nor qualification, nor our gospel righteousness, but in its very act a renouncing of all such pretences.
“We proclaim the market of grace to be free, (Isa 4:1-3). It is Christ’s last offer and lowest, (Rev 22:17). If there be any price or money spoken of, it is no price, no money. And where such are the terms and conditions, if we be forced to call them so, we must say, that they look more like a renouncing, than a boasting of any qualifications or conditions. Surely the terms of the gospel bargain are: God’s free giving, and our free taking and receiving.”
It is quite natural for us, born as we are, under the law, and brought up under the restraining influences of religion and civilisation, to suppose that we can be saved only by conforming to certain rules and implementing certain conditions. It is difficult to lay aside the performing of all duties as a means of being accepted graciously by God, and to submit to be sought and saved simply as lost sinners, by a loving Redeemer, who delivers us from guilt, corruption, and perdition, “without money and without price,” (Isa 55:1).
An eminent writer of last century says truly:-”The gospel is much clouded by legal terms, conditions, and qualifications. If my doctrine were: Upon condition that you did so and so-that you believe, and repent, and mourn, and pray, and obey, and the like-then you shall have the favour of God-I dare not for my life say that is the gospel. But the gospel I desire to preach to you is: Will you have a Christ to work faith, repentance, love, and all good in you, and to stand between you and the sword of Divine wrath? Here there is no room for you to object that you are not qualified, because you are such a hardened, unhumbled, blind, and stupid wretch. For the question is not: Will you remove these evils, and then come to Christ? but, Will you have a Christ to remove them for you? It is because you are plagued with these diseases that I call you to come to the Physician that He may heal them. Are you guilty? I offer Him unto you for righteousness. Are you polluted? I offer Him unto you for sanctification. Are you miserable and forlorn? I offer Him as made of God unto you complete redemption. Are you hard-hearted? I offer Him in that promise, ‘I will take away the heart of stone,’ (Ezek 36:26). Are you content that He break your hard heart? Come, then, and put your hard heart into His hand.”
“I’ve found the pearl of greatest price!
My heart doth sing for joy;
And sing I must, A Christ I have!
Oh what a Christ have I!
“My Christ He is the Lord of lords,
He is the King of kings;
He is the Sun of Righteousness,
With healing in His wings.
“My Christ He is the Tree of Life,
Which in God’s garden grows;
Whose fruits do feed, whose leaves do heal;
My Christ is Sharon’s Rose.
“Christ is my meat, Christ is my drink,
My medicine and my hea