The investigation of
the Scriptures upon the various subjects we have considered must not be
regarded as merely interesting study. These subjects are revealed to us as the
constitution of God’s plan of redemption, so that all who desire to share in
that plan may comply with the requirements, and that they may do so
intelligently, and thus bring their minds into unison with God’s mind in the
great work they are privileged to participate in with a view of sharing its
proffered blessings. A state of ignorance upon the fundamental doctrines of the
plan of redemption is a state of alienation from God. It is only by becoming at
one with him in mind that we can really be in the atonement He has graciously
provided in Christ.
This is a most
reasonable requirement; for how would multitudes of ignorant creatures
preserved eternally be any honor to God? In the common affairs of life we are
expected to inform ourselves, so that whatever we embark in we may do so
intelligently, earnestly endeavoring to know and do the right and avoiding the
wrong. Our actions are governed by our belief. If our belief is wrong, our
actions will be wrong. If one believes it will be profitable to spend money in
or bestow labor upon a certain enterprise, he will act accordingly; and if his
belief is without evidence, or based upon false evidence, his actions will
likewise be false and end in failure and disappointment. Had not God required
intelligence in those He purposed to receive as His children, there would have
been no need for the wonderful revelation He has given us; and this revelation
is evidence that God requires His people to be instructed, corrected, reproved
and exhorted, all as the means of enabling them to walk in the way of
righteousness which alone leads to the great redemption. It is therefore folly
for people to cry out that in religious matters they have a right to their own opinion.
As between man and man they have; but the absurdity of such a claim in relation
to God will be manifest when we ask, How could man ever form an opinion that
would be worth a moment’s consideration, concerning a future life, without a
revelation from God? The rule laid down is, "To the law and to the
testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no
light in them"--Isa.
To his apostles Jesus
said, "Go teach all nations." There were doctrines to be taught, and
salvation was predicated upon a belief of the doctrines taught and obedience to
the commandments, inculcated. In the case of Cornelius, we have a devout,
praying, alms-giving man. Yet he was told to send for Peter who would tell him words
whereby he should be saved. Evidently it was after he believed the
"words" and was baptized that his good qualities would be divinely
recognized as part of the means of salvation, in the sense of adding lustre to
the crown which induction into Christ by belief of the foundation doctrines and
baptism entitled him to.
On the other hand,
there are some who deny that any act is necessary to salvation, and they glibly
cry out, "Only believe! only believe!" by
which they mean a "belief" which comes instantaneously in the form of
a peculiar feeling which comes over them when under the excitement and hypnotic
influence of a shouting revival meeting. In attempting to support this delusion
by scripture, they quote the words, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved." But to repeat words without discerning their meaning
will do us no more good than the prattle of a parrot. The question is, What is it to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Study the
meaning of "Jesus" and "Christ," and they will open up to
the view the entire plan of salvation. So that to believe in what the apostle
said to the Philippian jailer is to believe the gospel. This is made quite
evident by the record of Philip’s going down to
Let it be observed,
too, that it is important that the belief be in the things, not things
concerning a kingdom which is not the
Now in order to realize
the great importance of salvation we must understand our real state--what we
need salvation from and to. This has already been shown in a broad sense in
dealing with man’s mortality and promised immortality; but it will be well now
to consider the matter of man’s relationship to God in a specific sense.
The first question is, When did salvation become a necessity and from what
cause? This will take us back again to
This alienated state is
declared to be the lot of all who are "without Christ"; and this
brings to mind the two relations man is found in, expressed by the words,
"in Adam" and "in Christ." The former represents the
dominion or constitution of sin and death: the latter the dominion or
constitution of righteousness and life. So long as we remain in the former
relation, all we can hope for is what sin’s dominion can give us; and that is a
sorrowful life of alienation from God ending in death and an irrevocable grave.
But if we change our relationship we thereby "pass from [the constitution
of] death to [the constitution of] life." "putting
off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new man to walk in newness
of life."
The "covenants of
promise" are the covenants God has made with men since the fall in
Now the question
arises, What means has God provided by which this
change can be effected? How can we pass from Adam to Christ, from alienation to
reconciliation and citizenship--how can we become the sons and daughters of the
Lord God Almighty? What must follow our belief as a means of effecting the
transition?
The Apostle Paul says
that a special revelation had been made for Gentiles explaining how they may
become "fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise
in Christ by the gospel" (Eph. 3: 1-6). When Gentiles have availed
themselves of this provision he says, "Now therefore, ye are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the
household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom the whole
building fitly framed together groweth into an holy temple in the Lord; in whom
ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the
spirit"--Eph. 2:19-22.
The most prominent
feature of the means of reconciliation with God is the remission of sin through
the blood of Christ. "Without the shedding of blood there is no
remission" is a truth which the sacrifices of the law had set forth and
emphasized most fully; and this reminds us that the penalty resting upon us is
death and that God required death in which there was the shedding of blood by
one who personally was sinless, as a means of redemption. Hence
the abundance of scripture which predicates salvation upon the blood of Christ.
The Apostle Paul says, "If one died for all, then were all dead." All
were under the sentence of death, and the necessity in the case was that
"one die for all." If the "all" had been alike, without any
exception, then all must have for ever remained under death’s domination, and
"Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return" would have been the
eternal destiny of all mankind. But if there could be an exception and one
could come to the rescue who would voluntarily render to death all that it
could lawfully claim, by suffering a violent death in which there would be a
sacrificial shedding of blood, and allowing death to take its victim down into
its prison house, the grave, then death’s rights and claims would end
there--because the law of sin and death had no further claim. It was the sin of
the race, federally in Adam, that gave the law of sin and death its power to
take its victims into dust; but when this demand had been met voluntarily and
sacrificially by one who had rendered to God a perfect life of holiness, the
law of sin and death had no further claim, and therefore the bands were
unloosed, the shackles opened. "He that died was now freed from sin’s
dominion" and "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death
hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God"--Rom. 6: 7-10.
There was only one kind of death, therefore, that would meet the requirements
of the case; and there was only one kind of person whose death would do. The
kind of death must be a voluntary one by the shedding of blood; and the kind of
person to die such a death must be one possessed of an absolutely holy
character. Therefore there never was and never will be salvation in any other
than in Christ; there never was redeeming efficacy in any other blood than the
blood of Christ; for he alone used the life of the blood of sin’s flesh, with
every heart-beat of his fleshly existence, to render complete service to God,
even to the extent of shedding the blood of sin’s flesh and relying upon his
Father for restoration to life to die no more, by virtue of being a "holy
one". As in the case of Christ, so with every one that will be saved,
"He that dies is freed from [the dominion of] sin." But a literal
death of a personal sinner will not free from sin. A death that will free from
sin must in some manner connect itself with the only death that was equal to
all the requirements in the case, and it must derive its sin-freeing and
sin-remitting efficacy from that one death, even the death of Christ. Like the
death which first "freed from sin," every death that depends upon that
must be voluntary; and all who die such a death can no more be permanently held
in the grave than could Christ. Hence the apostle says, "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by
baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by
the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if
we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in
the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this that our old man is crucified
with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should
not serve sin."
In this scriptural mode
of conversion the three essential witnesses must testify--the "Spirit (word),
the water and the blood." The Spirit through and in the word leads the
believer to the water; and there, and no where else, the cleansing efficacy of
the blood operates. The three must meet and agree in one in transforming a
child of the world and of the flesh into a child of God. This brings us to the
subject of Baptism and its relation to salvation, which we will consider in the
next chapter.