God's Plan with Men Part 8

Second, one must know Him as complete Redeemer in order to believe on Him, in order to commit one's salvation to Him against that day. There is no middle ground. He was either no redeemer at all, or He "gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity."--t.i.tus 2:14. To try to avoid the issue here is as fatal as to try to avoid the issue as to His being the Messiah. To believe on, to commit one's salvation to, a partial Redeemer, is to have no redeemer at all, to be left unredeemed, unsaved.

Third, to know Him in order to believe on Him, to commit one's salvation to Him against that day, one must know Him as having been really raised from the dead. _Belief in the real resurrection of the Saviour is essential to salvation._ For one to be heralded abroad as a great preacher and theologian who yet denies the literal, real resurrection of the Saviour, cannot change G.o.d's word that all such are yet unredeemed, lost, not real Christians. G.o.d's word is plain on this point: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and _shalt believe in thy heart that G.o.d hath raised him from the dead_, thou shalt be saved."--Rom. 10:9. "If Christ hath not been raised your faith is vain; _ye are yet in your sins_."--1 Cor. 15:17.

Chalmers, the great Scotch preacher, in a letter to a friend made plain what believing on Christ means: "I must say 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.... We are apt to stagger at the greatness of the unmerited offer and cannot attach faith to it till we have made up some t.i.tle of our own. This leads to two mischievous consequences: It keeps alive the presumption of one cla.s.s who will still be thinking that it is something in themselves and of themselves which confers upon them a right of salvation; and it confirms the melancholy of another cla.s.s, who look into their own hearts and their own lives, and find that they cannot make out a shadow of a t.i.tle to the divine favor. 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.'--Is. 45:22. 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; and 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 G.o.d; 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. G.o.d 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 mind and write it in your heart (Heb. 8:10).

These are the effects of your believing in Christ, and not the services by which you become ent.i.tled to believe in Him. Make a clear outset in the business, and understand that your first step is simply confiding acceptance of an offer that is most free, most frank, most generous, and most unconditional. 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?"

Equally helpful are the words of Horatius Bonar in "Words for the Inquiring":--"If you object that you cannot believe, then this indicates that you are proceeding quite in a wrong direction. You are still laboring under the idea that this believing is a work to be done by you, and not the acknowledgment of a work done by another. You would fain do something in order to get peace, and you think that if you could do this great thing 'believing,' if you could but perform this great act called faith, G.o.d would at once reward you by giving you peace. Thus faith is reckoned by you to be the price, in the sinner's hand, by which he buys peace, and not the mere holding out of the hand to get a peace which has already been bought by another. So long as you are attaching any meritorious importance to faith, however unconsciously, you are moving in a wrong direction--a direction from which no peace can come. Surely faith is not a work. On the contrary, it is a ceasing from work. It is not a climbing of the mountain, but a ceasing to attempt it, and allowing Christ to carry you up in His own arms. You seem to think that it is your act of faith that is to save you, and not the object of your faith, without which your act, however well performed, is nothing. Accordingly, you bethink yourself, and say, 'What a mighty work is this believing--what an effort does it require on my part--how am I to perform it?' Herein you sadly err, and your mistake lies chiefly here, in supposing that your peace is to come from the proper performance on your part of an act of faith; whereas, it is to come entirely from the proper perception of Him to whom the Father is pointing your eyes, and in regard to whom He is saying, 'Behold my servant whom I have chosen, look at Him, forget everything else--everything about yourself, your own faith, your own repentance, your own feelings--and look at Him! It is in Him, not out of your poor act of faith, that salvation lies; and out of Him, not out of your own act of faith, is peace to come.' Thus mistaking the meaning of faith and the way which faith saves you, you get into confusion, and mistake everything else connected with your peace: you mistake the real nature of that very inability to believe of which you complain so sadly. For that inability does not lie, as you fancy it does, in the impossibility of your performing aright the great act of faith, but of ceasing from all such self-righteous attempts to perform any act, or do any work whatsoever in order to your being saved. So that the real truth is, that you have not yet seen such a sufficiency in the one great work of the Son of G.o.d upon the cross, as to lead you utterly to discontinue your mistaken and aimless efforts to work out something of your own.

"But perhaps you may object further, that you are not satisfied with your faith. No, truly, nor are you ever likely to be. If you wait for this before you take peace, you will wait till life is done. Not satisfaction with your own faith, but satisfaction with Jesus and His work, this is what G.o.d presses on you. You say, 'I am satisfied with Christ.' Are you? What more, then, do you wish? Is not satisfaction with Christ enough for you, or for every sinner? Nay, and is not this the truest kind of faith? To be _satisfied with Christ_, that is faith in Christ. To be satisfied with His blood, that is faith. What more could you have? Can your faith give you something which Christ cannot?

Or will Christ give you nothing till you can produce faith of a certain kind and quality, whose excellences will ent.i.tle you to blessing? Do not bewilder yourself. Do not suppose that your faith is a price, or a bribe, or a merit. Is not the very essence of real faith just your being satisfied with Christ? Are you really satisfied with Him and with what He has done? Then do not puzzle yourself about your faith, but go on your way rejoicing, having thus been brought to be satisfied with Him who to know is peace, and life, and salvation....

Faith, however perfect, has of itself nothing to give you either of pardon or of life. Its finger points you to Jesus. Its voice bids you look straight to Him. Its object is to turn away from itself and from yourself altogether, that you may behold Him, and in beholding Him be satisfied with Him and in being satisfied with Him have joy and peace."

Likewise James Denny, in "The Death of Christ," teaches the same lesson: "It is this great Gospel which is the gospel to win souls--this message of a sin-bearing, sin-expiating love which pleads for acceptance, which takes the whole responsibility of the sinner, unconditionally, with no preliminaries, if only he abandon himself to it."

A young person who felt that his time in this world was short, wrote to an eminent English preacher to write and tell a sinner what he must do to prepare to die--what is the preparation required by G.o.d--and when he is fit to die. The preacher wrote: "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 G.o.d divinely, fully, freely and forever 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_. G.o.d 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 child-like faith upon that atonement--'Christ dying for the unG.o.dly' (Rom. 5:6)--and you are saved! Justification is this, 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 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 righteousness and runs unto this blessed city of Refuge--the Lord Jesus--and hides himself there--exclaiming, 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 8:1). G.o.d 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. G.o.d will glorify His free grace by your salvation, and will therefore save you just as you are, without money and without price (Is. 55:1). I close with Paul's reply to the anxious jailor, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved' (Acts 16:31). No matter what you have been, or what you are, plunged into the fountain opened for sin, and for uncleanness (Zech. 13:1), and you shall be clean, 'washed whiter than snow' (Ps. 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 in exclaiming, 'worthy is the Lamb, for he was slain for us' (Rev. 5:12)."

"Until I saw the blood 'twas h.e.l.l my soul was fearing; And dark and dreary in my eyes the future was appearing, While conscience told its tale of sin And caused a weight of woe within.

"But when I saw the blood, and looked at Him who shed it, My right to peace was seen at once, and I with transport read it, I found myself to G.o.d brought nigh And 'Victory' became my cry.

"My joy was in the blood, the news of which had told me, That spotless as the lamb of G.o.d, my Father could behold me.

And all my boast was in His name Through whom this great salvation came."

IX

ETERNAL LIFE THE PRESENT POSSESSION OF THE BELIEVER

"Ye are not under the law."--Rom. 6:14.

"Ye are all the children of G.o.d by faith in Christ Jesus."--Gal.

3:26.

"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of G.o.d."--1 John 5:1.

"By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of G.o.d: not of works, lest any one should boast."--Eph. 2:8, 9 (1911 Bible and R. V.)

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life."--John 3:36.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is pa.s.sed from death unto life."--John 5:24.

"G.o.d has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life."--1 John 5:11, 12.

It is an awe-inspiring thought, a wonderful, blessed reality, that every real believer on the Lord Jesus has, here and now, _eternal life_, not simply the promise of it, but the eternal life itself. The human mind cannot fully take it in, that every man, the moment he is redeemed from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), redeemed from all iniquity (t.i.tus 2:14), redeemed from under the law (Rom. 6:14), and adopted as a child of G.o.d (Gal. 4:4-7), has then and there _everlasting life_ (John 5:24), a new life that is never, never to end; a life that will outlast the stars; a life that he will be consciously enjoying when all the stars shall have burnt out. And yet when such a life is offered as a gift ("I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,"--John 10:28) many men will not repent and accept the gift. Religious prejudice, pride, secret sin, love of the world,--for what puny trifles do men turn from the greatest of all gifts, the greatest of all blessings, eternal life! Reader, will you be among the number who make this foolish, this fatal mistake?

But with some the greatness of this gift, and its blessed reality, are obscured by the teaching that the believer on Christ has not everlasting life _now_, but only the _promise_ of it. When G.o.d's word tells us that the redeemed one, the believer on Christ, is not under the law (Rom. 6:14), is a child of G.o.d (Gal. 3:26), _has been_ saved (Eph. 2:8, 9, 1911 Bible and R. V.), not _will be_ saved, it would be strange that, after all, the believer should have only a promise for the beyond and no reality here and now. But G.o.d's word goes further and says, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ _is born of G.o.d_."--1 John 5:1. _There cannot be birth without new life._ It is not the old life; that would mean no birth. If, then, the new life is not _eternal_ life, _what life is it_?

If language can be made to mean anything, G.o.d's word makes it plain that every redeemed man, every believer on Christ, has _here and now_, eternal life; for G.o.d's word tells us, not only that "by grace _have ye been saved_" (Eph. 2:8, 9, 1911 Bible and R. V.), but it states plainly, "he that believeth on the Son _hath_ everlasting life" (John 3:36); "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, _hath_ everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is pa.s.sed from death unto life."--John 5:24. That G.o.d's word does not mean that the believer on Christ has simply the _promise_ of everlasting life, but that he really has the everlasting life, notice John 5:24, "_Hath_ everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but _is pa.s.sed_ [here and now] from death unto life." The Revised Version (the more exact translation) makes it much stronger,--"_hath pa.s.sed_ out of death _into life_." What life, if not eternal life? Before this plain, positive statement of G.o.d's word, the mere promise of eternal life theory cannot stand. But the fact that the believer on Christ really has now eternal life, is made plain by other Scriptures. "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life _abiding in him_."--1 John 3:15. Here we are shown that when one "hath eternal life" it is "eternal life _abiding in him_"; for there would be no meaning to the language if no one has eternal life abiding in him.

Again, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life."--John 6:53, 54.

The Saviour had just taught in verse 35 what eating His flesh and drinking His blood meant: "I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." Here in verses 53, 54, the Saviour shows clearly that the eternal life that the believer on Him "_hath_" is "_in_" you--here and now.

Let the unredeemed reader pause: in a moment, here and now, he can have _everlasting life_ with G.o.d's a.s.surance that he "shall never perish" ("I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish."--John 10:28). It is a tremendous decision, and it may prove to be a fatal one, to turn away and not believe on Christ and have as a present possession eternal life. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, _hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is pa.s.sed from death unto life_."--John 5:24.

_FOR FURTHER STUDY_:--Some who believe that the redeemed have only the _promise_ of eternal life, but that they have not eternal life, as a real present possession, base this belief on such Scriptures as, "In hope of eternal life, which G.o.d, who cannot lie, promised before the world began" (t.i.tus 1:2), in connection with, "Hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for what we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."--Rom.

8:24, 25. Their thought is, if we live "in hope of eternal life," then we have not really eternal life as a present possession; that we cannot hope for what we already have. But Jesus said positively that the believer "_hath pa.s.sed out_ of death _into_ life" (John 5:24, R.

V.), and He contrasts the one who "_hath_ eternal life" with those to whom He says, "Ye have no life _in you_." A man can have eternal life here, and at the same time hope for it beyond the grave. A man has his wife and children _now_, and _hopes_ to have them next year; a man away from wife and children has his life _now_; and yet he lives in hope of his life (the same life, that part of it not yet lived) with his wife and children a month from now; an exile from home has his life now; yet lives in hope of his life (the same life, that part of it not yet lived) in his native land a year from now. So, the child of G.o.d's, the redeemed man's, citizens.h.i.+p is in Heaven (Phil. 3:20); he lives in hope of eternal life there; yet it is the same eternal life (that part of it not lived) that he has here and now.

Another cause of stumbling at eternal life being now the actual possession of the redeemed man, is that many who claimed to have had eternal life, also claim to have lost it; and if it had been actually _eternal_ life it could not have stopped; for then eternal would not be really eternal; hence, it must have been simply the _promise_ of eternal life that they had, and they therefore only lost the _promise_ and not really eternal life itself. But Jesus, foreseeing this cla.s.s of professing Christians, said that they were never really redeemed, never really had eternal life: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out demons? and in thy name done many wonderful works? and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you,"--Matt. 7:22, 23, not "you were redeemed, you did have eternal life, but you lost it; it stopped"; but "I never knew you," and John teaches the same thing in 1 John 2:19, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest that they all are not of us." (R. V.)

"There is no such thing as partly saved and partly lost; partly justified and partly guilty; partly alive and partly dead; partly born of G.o.d and partly not. There are but two states, and we must be in either the one or the other."--_Wm. Reid, in "The Blood of Jesus."_

To many earnest men it seems dangerous to teach men that when they are redeemed from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), and adopted as G.o.d's children (Gal. 4:3-7), they then really have as an actual possession _eternal_ life, and that they shall never perish, "_hath_ everlasting life, and shall not come unto condemnation,"--John 5:24; "I give unto them _eternal_ life, and they shall never perish,"--John 10:28; they think that such a belief will be a temptation to sin; that it is liable to lead to presumptuous, wilful sinning. They think it much safer for men to believe that they have not really the eternal life itself as an actual present possession, but only the promise of it; and that by their sinning hereafter they may forfeit that promise and be lost. They think that this fear of being lost will act as a check, a safeguard, a restraining power. To the extent that it does, it produces service from the motive of fear of h.e.l.l, fear of losing Heaven, and not from the motive of love to Christ for having redeemed them from all iniquity (t.i.tus 2:14). But G.o.d's word on this point is clear: "The love of Christ [_not_ the fear of h.e.l.l, nor the fear of losing Heaven] constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again."--2 Cor. 5:14, 15.

The teaching that the redeemed, saved man has now eternal life and shall never perish, will lead to wilful, presumptuous sinning on the part of hypocrites, and may lead to indifference and sin on the part of those who honestly think they are redeemed, saved, but who really are not; for such are not born again (1 Peter 1:23), and have not the motive power of love, because really redeemed, prompting their action.

Those who think it is dangerous to teach a redeemed (1 Peter 1:18, 19), saved (Eph. 2:8, R. V.) man, a child of G.o.d (Gal. 4:4-7), that he has here and now, as an actual possession, eternal life, and shall never perish (John 10:28), shall not come into condemnation (John 5:24), lose sight of five facts in _G.o.d's plan with men_:--

First, the redeemed man is born again, born of G.o.d, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of G.o.d."--1 John 5:1.

"Therefore if any one is in Christ he is a new creature."--2 Cor.

5:17. This is not a mere theory. All down the centuries since the Saviour came, there have been mult.i.tudes of notable cases where hardened men and women, deep down in sin, have actually become new creatures by being redeemed and being born again. Many are now living, whose names could be given, who are widely known, who were once notorious in sin, and they are now willingly and gladly wearing out their lives in G.o.d's service, and are living G.o.dly lives: and this change came in their lives, not by a gradual process, but in a moment.

G.o.d's word says it is a new birth. There is no other explanation. But every one who is redeemed is thus born of G.o.d (1 John 5:1), and this new nature will lead one to hate sin, and prompt to a G.o.dly life.

Second, the redeemed man is under the new motive of love to Christ ("if ye love me, keep my commandments,"--John 14:15) to prompt him to a faithful Christian life. On this point James Denny in "The Death of Christ" says, "The love which is the motive of it acts immediately upon the sinful; grat.i.tude exerts an irresistible constraint; His responsibility means our emanc.i.p.ation; His death, our life; His bleeding wound, our healing. Whoever says, 'He bore our sins,' says subst.i.tution; and to say subst.i.tution is to say something which involves an immeasurable obligation to Christ, and _has therefore in it an incalculable motive power_." Let the reader note well, that the purpose of G.o.d in saving men through Christ dying of their sins (1 Cor. 15:3) is to _purify the motive power_ and _make it effective_.

"He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live _unto themselves_, but _unto him_."--2 Cor. 5:15.

When men live in order that they may retain the promise of eternal life, that they may attain eternal life hereafter, from fear lest they should forfeit the promise and not attain eternal life hereafter, they "live unto themselves." When men live because they already have as an actual possession, eternal life, and realize that it is eternal, they live from love, and not unto themselves but "_unto Him_."

And G.o.d's plan is effective. "The love of Christ constraineth us" (2 Cor. 5:14), _it does constrain_. Hence, Jesus says, "if a man love me, _he will_ keep my words."--John 14:23. Again, "If G.o.d were your Father _ye would_ love me."--John 8:42. So important is this fact of the new motive power and its effectiveness, that the reader's attention will now be directed to the words of James Denny in "The Death of Christ"

on this subject. That the reader may the better appreciate these words, his attention is first called to the estimates of Denny's great work by two of the leading religious editors of the world. The _Pittsburg Christian Advocate_: "To thoughtful students 'The Death of Christ' came as one of the most stirring books of the decade if not of the generation." The _New York Examiner_: "The most important contribution to the all-important doctrine of the atonement since the appearance of Dr. Dale's epoch-making book.... Exegetically considered, it is the most important book published within the memory of the younger generation of preachers." On the death of Christ for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3) being the motive power in the Christian life, and its being effective, Denny says: "The problem before us is to discover what it is in the death of Christ which gives it its power to generate such experience, to exercise on human hearts the constraining influence of which the apostle speaks; and this is precisely what we discover, in the inferential clause; 'so then all died.' This clause puts as plainly as it can be put the idea that His death was equivalent to the death of all; in other words, it was the death of all men which was died by Him."... "Their relation to G.o.d is not determined now _in the very least by sin or law_: it is determined by Christ, the propitiation, and by faith. The position of the believer is not that of one trembling at the judgment seat, or of one for whom everything remains somehow in a condition of suspense; it is that of one who has the a.s.surance of a Divine love which has gone deeper than all his sins, and has taken on itself the _responsibility of them_, and _the responsibility of delivering him from them_."... "Take away the certainty of it and the New Testament temper expires. Joy in this certainty is not presumption; on the contrary, it is joy in the Lord, and such joy is the Christian's strength. It is the impulse and the hope of sanctification; and to deprecate it, and the a.s.surance from which it springs, is no true evangelical humility, but a failure to believe in the infinite goodness of G.o.d who in Christ removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west, and plants our life in His eternal reconciling love."... "An absolute justification is needed to give the sinner a start. He must have the certainty of 'no condemnation' of being, without reserve or drawback, right with G.o.d through G.o.d's gracious act in Christ, before he can begin to live the new life."... "_It is not by denying the gospel outright, from the very beginning, that we are to guard against the possible abuse of it._"... "To try to take some preliminary security from the sinner's future morality before you make the gospel available for him, is not only to strike at the root of a.s.surance, it is to pay a very poor tribute to the power of the gospel. The truth is, morality is best guaranteed by Christ, and not by any precautions we can take before Christ gets a chance, or by any virtue that is in faith except as it unites the soul to Him."... "If it is our death that Christ died on the cross, there is in the cross the constraint of an infinite love; but if it is not our death at all--if it is not our burden and doom that He has taken on Himself there, then what is it to us?"... "He who has done so tremendous a thing as to take our death to Himself has established a claim upon our life. We are not in the sphere of mystical union, of dying with Christ and living with Him; but in that of love transcendently shown, and of grat.i.tude profoundly felt."...

"But this can only come on the foundation of the other; it is the discharge from the responsibilities of sin involved in Christ's death and appropriated in faith, which is the motive power in the daily ethical dying to sin."... "The new life springs out of the sense of debt to Christ."... "It is the knowledge that we have been bought with a price which makes us cease to be our own, and live for Him who so dearly bought us."... "But when its certainty, completeness, and freeness are so qualified or disguised that a.s.surance becomes suspect and joy is quenched, the Christian religion has ceased to be."...

"This is why St. Paul is not afraid to trust the new life to its own resources, and why he objects equally to supplanting it by legal regulations afterwards, or by what are supposed to be ethical securities beforehand. It does not need them, and is bound to repel them as dishonoring to Christ. To demand moral guarantees from a sinner before you give him the benefit of the atonement, or to impose legal restrictions on him after he has yielded to its appeal, and received it through faith, is to make the atonement itself of no effect."... "In any case, I do not hesitate to say that the sense of debt to Christ is the most profound and pervasive of all emotions in the New Testament, and that only a gospel which evokes this, as the gospel of atonement does, is true to primitive and normal Christianity."

Let the reader consider two statements just here from another great work, concerning the effectiveness of love as the motive power in the redeemed man's life (in the writer's judgment no greater work, excepting the gospel of John [John 20:30, 31], has ever been written for honest sceptics, than Walker's "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation"). "Just in proportion as the soul feels its lost, guilty and dangerous condition, in the same proportion will it exercise love to the being who grants spiritual favor and salvation."... "It may be affirmed, without hesitancy, that it would be impossible for the human soul to exercise full faith in the testimony that it was a guilty and needy creature, condemned by the holy law of a holy G.o.d, and that from this condition of spiritual guilt and danger Jesus Christ suffered and died to accomplish its ransom,--we say, a human being could not exercise full faith in these truths and not love the Saviour."

Third, those who fear that if redeemed men, G.o.d's children, are taught that they have, here and now, eternal life as an actual present possession, and that it is eternal, it will be liable to lead them into presumptuous, wilful sin, lose sight of a third fact. The redeemed man, the real child of G.o.d, can be tempted, can be led into sin, and some of them do become backsliders, but G.o.d's word teaches that they will be chastised in this life. Let the reader turn back and read Chapter V. Two Scriptures there quoted make plain the chastening of G.o.d's disobedient children: "Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.

If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.

Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips."--Ps. 89:27-34. Equally explicit is the New Testament: "Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto sons. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, G.o.d dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastening, whereof all are partakers, then are ye b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us as seemed right to them; but he for our profit, _that we might be partakers of his holiness_. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterwards it _yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness_ unto them that are exercised thereby."--Heb. 12:5-11. So that, the disobedient child of G.o.d will suffer for his sins, not in h.e.l.l, but in this life; and not as a just penalty for violated law, for he is not under the law ("Ye are not under the law,"--Rom. 6:14), but as chastening, for correction. It is not a theory merely, for G.o.d's word declares that G.o.d's plan works--"It yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness."

Fourth, those who fear that teaching redeemed men, G.o.d's children, that they have, as a present possession, eternal life and not simply the promise of it, and who think that the safer course is to teach them that they have only the promise of eternal life and may forfeit it by unfaithfulness, lose sight of another fact, that the unfaithful redeemed one will lose his reward. Let the reader turn back and read Chapter VI. The Scripture teaching is plain, "If any man's work abide which he has built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire."--1 Cor. 3:14, 15. He loses his reward who is unfaithful, but not his eternal life, because it is eternal, and because he has been redeemed from all iniquity (t.i.tus 2:14).