Editor's Note: For every Christian who struggles with the assurance of your salvation, the
following article is a must-read! You will clearly see that your salvation has nothing to do with your
good works. You don't have to maintain your salvation for the Lord Jesus paid the price for you. If
you have received Him, you are His and He is yours! He is our Savior and our Advocate and will keep
us all in His care. Believers are secure in Christ.
In considering this great subject, two things claim our attention: first, what
Christ has done for us; secondly, what He is doing for us. In the former we
have atonement; in the latter, advocacy. He died for us on the cross. He lives
for us on the Throne. By his precious atoning death, He has met our entire
condition as sinners. He has borne our sins, and put them away for ever. He
stood charged with all our sins— the sins of all who believe in His name.
"Jehovah laid on him the iniquities of us all." (Isa. 53) And again, "For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to
God." 1 Peter 3: 18.
This is a grand and all-important truth for the anxious soul— a truth which lies
at the very foundation of the whole Christian position. It is impossible that any
truly awakened soul, any spiritually enlightened conscience, can enjoy divinely-
settled peace until this most precious truth is laid hold of in simple faith. I must
know, upon divine authority, that all my sins are put away for ever out of
God's sight; that He Himself has disposed of them in such a manner as to
satisfy all the claims of His throne, and all the attributes of His nature;
that He has glorified Himself in the putting away of my sins, in a far
higher and more wonderful manner than if He had sent me to an
everlasting hell on account of them.
Yes, He Himself has done it. This is the very gist and marrow, the heart's core
of the whole matter. God has laid our sins on Jesus, and He tells us so in His
Holy Word, so that we may know it upon divine authority — an authority that
cannot lie. God planned it; God did it; God says it. It is all of God, from
first to last, and we have simply to rest in it like a little child. How do I
know that Jesus bore my sins in His own body on the tree? By the very same
authority which tells me I had sins to be borne. God, in His marvellous and
matchless love, assures me, a poor guilty, hell-deserving sinner, that He has
Himself undertaken the whole matter of my sins, and disposed of it in such
a manner as to bring a rich harvest of glory to His own eternal name,
throughout the wide universe, in presence of all created intelligence.
The living faith of this must tranquilize the conscience. If God has satisfied
Himself about my sins, I may well be satisfied also. I know I am a sinner—
it may be the chief of sinners. I know my sins are more in number than the hairs
of my head; that they are black as midnight— black as hell itself. I know that
any one of these sins, the very least, deserves the eternal flames of hell. I know â
€” because God's word tells me — that a single speck of sin can never enter
His holy presence; and hence, so far as I am concerned, there was no possible
issue, save eternal separation from God. All this I know, upon the clear and
unquestionable authority of that Word which is settled for ever in Heaven.
But oh the profound mystery of the cross!— the glorious mystery of redeeming
love I see God Himself taking all my sins — the black and terrible category —
all my sins, as He knew and estimated them. I see Him laying them all upon the
head of my blessed Substitute, and dealing with Him about them. I see all the
billows and waves of God's righteous wrath — His wrath against my sins —
His wrath which should have consumed me soul and body in hell throughout a
dreary eternity; I see them all rolling over the Man (Christ Jesus) who stood
in my stead; who represented me before God; who bore all that was due to
me: with whom a holy God dealt as He should have dealt with me. I see
inflexible justice, holiness, truth, and righteousness dealing with my sins, and
making a clear and eternal riddance of them. Not one of them is suffered to
pass! There is no connivance, no palliation, no slurring over, no indifference.
This could not possibly be, once God Himself took the matter in hand. His glory
was at stake; His unsullied holiness, His eternal majesty, the lofty claims of His
government.
All these had to be provided for in such wise as to glorify Himself in view of
angels, men, and devils. He might have sent me to hell — righteously, justly,
sent me to hell — because of my sins. I deserved nothing else. My whole
moral being, from its profoundest depths, owns this — must own it. I have not
a word to say in excuse for a single sinful thought, to say nothing of a sin-
stained life from first to last — yes, a life of deliberate, rebellious, high-handed
sin.
Others may reason as they please as to the injustice of an eternity of punishment
for a life of sin — the utter want of proportion between a few years of wrong-
doing and endless ages of torment in the lake of fire. They may reason, but I
thoroughly believe, and unreservedly confess, that for a single sin against such a
Being as the God whom I see at the cross, I richly deserved everlasting
punishment in the deep, dark, and dismal pit of hell.
I am not writing as a theologian; if I were, it would be a very easy task indeed to
bring an unanswerable array of scripture evidence in proof of the solemn truth
of eternal punishment. But no; I am writing as one who has been divinely taught
the true desert of sin, and that desert I calmly, deliberately, and solemnly
declare, is, and can be, nothing less than eternal exclusion from the presence of
God and the Lamb — eternal torment in the lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone.
But — eternal hallelujahs to the God of all grace! — instead of sending
us to hell because of our sins, He sent His Son to be the propitiation for
those sins. And in the unfolding of the marvellous plan of redemption, we see a
holy God dealing with the question of our sins, and executing judgment upon
them in the Person of His well-beloved, eternal, and co-equal Son, in order that
the full flood-tide of His love might flow down into our hearts. "Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4: 10.
Now this must give peace to the conscience, if only it be received in the
simplicity of faith. How is it possible for a person to believe that God has
satisfied Himself as to his sins, and not have peace? If God says to us, "Your
sins and iniquities I will remember no more," what could we desire further as a
basis of peace for our conscience? If God assures me that all my sins are
blotted out as a thick; cloud — that they are cast behind His back — for
ever gone from His sight — should I not have peace? If He shows me the
Man who bore my sins on the cross, now crowned at the right hand of the
Majesty in the heavens, ought not my soul to enter into perfect rest as to the
question of my sins? Most assuredly.
For how, let me ask, did Christ reach the place which He now fills on the throne
of God? Was it as God over all, blessed for ever? No; for He was always that.
Was it as the eternal Son of the Father? No; He was ever that — ever in the
bosom of the Father — the object of the Father's eternal and ineffable delight.
Was it as a spotless, holy, perfect Man, whose nature was absolutely pure,
perfectly free from sin? No; for in that character, and on that ground, He could
at any moment, between the manger and the cross, have claimed a place at the
right hand of God. How was it then? Eternal praise to the God of all grace! it
was as the One who had by His death accomplished the glorious work of
redemption — the One who had stood charged with the full weight of our
sins — he One who had perfectly satisfied all the righteous claims of that
throne on which He now sits.
This is a grand, cardinal point for the anxious reader to seize. It cannot fail to
emancipate the heart, and tranquilize the conscience. We cannot possibly behold
by faith the Man who was nailed to the tree, now crowned on the throne, and
not have peace with God. The Lord Jesus Christ, having taken upon Himself
our sins, and the judgment due to them, He could not be where He now is if a
single one of those sins remained unatoned for. To see the sin-bearer crowned
with glory is to see our sins gone for ever from the divine presence. Where
are our sins? They are all obliterated. How do we know this? The One who
took them all upon Himself has passed through the heavens to the very
highest pinnacle of glory. Eternal justice has wreathed His blessed brow with a
diadem of glory, as the Accomplisher of our redemption — the Bearer of our
sins; thus proving, beyond all question, or possibility of a question, that
our sins are all put away out of God's sight for ever. A crowned Christ,
and a clear conscience, are, in the blessed economy of grace, inseparably
linked together. Wondrous fact! Well may we chant with all our ransomed
powers the praises of redeeming love.
But let us see how this most consolatory truth is set forth in Holy Scripture. In
Romans 3 we read, "But now the righteousness of God, without law [coris
nomou], is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the
righteousness of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that
believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the
glory of God; being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in his
blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission [or passing over] of sins
that are past [in time gone by], through the forbearance of God; to declare at
this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which
believeth in Jesus."
Again, in Romans 4, speaking of Abraham's faith being counted to him for
righteousness, the apostle adds, "Now it was not written for his sake alone, that
it was imputed to him: but for as also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe
on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our
offences, and raised again for our justification." Here we have God introduced
to our souls as the One who raised from the dead the Bearer of our sins.
Why did He do so? Because the One who had been delivered for our offences
had perfectly glorified Him respecting those offences, and put them away for
ever. God not only sent His only begotten Son into the world, but He bruised
Him for our iniquities, and raised Him from the dead, in order that we might
know and believe that our iniquities are all disposed of in such a manner as to
glorify Him infinitely and everlastingly. Eternal and universal homage to His
name!
But we have farther testimony on this grand fundamental truth. In Hebrews 1
we read such soul-stirring words as these: "God, who at sundry times and in
divers manners [or in divers measures and modes] spake in times past unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by [His] Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and
upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged
our sins sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Our Lord Christ,
blessed be His name, would not take His seat on the throne of God, until
he had, by the offering of Himself on the cross, purged our sins. Hence a
risen Christ at God's right hand is the glorious and unanswerable proof
that our sins are all gone, for He could not be where He now is if a single
one of those sins remained. God raised from the dead the self-same Man on
whom He Himself had laid the full weight of our sins. Thus all is settled —
divinely, eternally settled. It is as impossible that a single sin can be found
on the very weakest believer in Jesus, as on Jesus Himself. This is a
wonderful thing to be able to say, but it is the solid truth of God,
established in manifold places in holy scripture; and the soul that believes
it must possess a peace which the world can neither give nor take away.
~CHM
Further Reading:
Dead with Christ, Risen with Christ
Living According to God's Word -- Not according to The World
The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ
A Just God and Savior
Grace Upon Grace - John 1:16
following article is a must-read! You will clearly see that your salvation has nothing to do with your
good works. You don't have to maintain your salvation for the Lord Jesus paid the price for you. If
you have received Him, you are His and He is yours! He is our Savior and our Advocate and will keep
us all in His care. Believers are secure in Christ.
In considering this great subject, two things claim our attention: first, what
Christ has done for us; secondly, what He is doing for us. In the former we
have atonement; in the latter, advocacy. He died for us on the cross. He lives
for us on the Throne. By his precious atoning death, He has met our entire
condition as sinners. He has borne our sins, and put them away for ever. He
stood charged with all our sins— the sins of all who believe in His name.
"Jehovah laid on him the iniquities of us all." (Isa. 53) And again, "For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to
God." 1 Peter 3: 18.
This is a grand and all-important truth for the anxious soul— a truth which lies
at the very foundation of the whole Christian position. It is impossible that any
truly awakened soul, any spiritually enlightened conscience, can enjoy divinely-
settled peace until this most precious truth is laid hold of in simple faith. I must
know, upon divine authority, that all my sins are put away for ever out of
God's sight; that He Himself has disposed of them in such a manner as to
satisfy all the claims of His throne, and all the attributes of His nature;
that He has glorified Himself in the putting away of my sins, in a far
higher and more wonderful manner than if He had sent me to an
everlasting hell on account of them.
Yes, He Himself has done it. This is the very gist and marrow, the heart's core
of the whole matter. God has laid our sins on Jesus, and He tells us so in His
Holy Word, so that we may know it upon divine authority — an authority that
cannot lie. God planned it; God did it; God says it. It is all of God, from
first to last, and we have simply to rest in it like a little child. How do I
know that Jesus bore my sins in His own body on the tree? By the very same
authority which tells me I had sins to be borne. God, in His marvellous and
matchless love, assures me, a poor guilty, hell-deserving sinner, that He has
Himself undertaken the whole matter of my sins, and disposed of it in such
a manner as to bring a rich harvest of glory to His own eternal name,
throughout the wide universe, in presence of all created intelligence.
The living faith of this must tranquilize the conscience. If God has satisfied
Himself about my sins, I may well be satisfied also. I know I am a sinner—
it may be the chief of sinners. I know my sins are more in number than the hairs
of my head; that they are black as midnight— black as hell itself. I know that
any one of these sins, the very least, deserves the eternal flames of hell. I know â
€” because God's word tells me — that a single speck of sin can never enter
His holy presence; and hence, so far as I am concerned, there was no possible
issue, save eternal separation from God. All this I know, upon the clear and
unquestionable authority of that Word which is settled for ever in Heaven.
But oh the profound mystery of the cross!— the glorious mystery of redeeming
love I see God Himself taking all my sins — the black and terrible category —
all my sins, as He knew and estimated them. I see Him laying them all upon the
head of my blessed Substitute, and dealing with Him about them. I see all the
billows and waves of God's righteous wrath — His wrath against my sins —
His wrath which should have consumed me soul and body in hell throughout a
dreary eternity; I see them all rolling over the Man (Christ Jesus) who stood
in my stead; who represented me before God; who bore all that was due to
me: with whom a holy God dealt as He should have dealt with me. I see
inflexible justice, holiness, truth, and righteousness dealing with my sins, and
making a clear and eternal riddance of them. Not one of them is suffered to
pass! There is no connivance, no palliation, no slurring over, no indifference.
This could not possibly be, once God Himself took the matter in hand. His glory
was at stake; His unsullied holiness, His eternal majesty, the lofty claims of His
government.
All these had to be provided for in such wise as to glorify Himself in view of
angels, men, and devils. He might have sent me to hell — righteously, justly,
sent me to hell — because of my sins. I deserved nothing else. My whole
moral being, from its profoundest depths, owns this — must own it. I have not
a word to say in excuse for a single sinful thought, to say nothing of a sin-
stained life from first to last — yes, a life of deliberate, rebellious, high-handed
sin.
Others may reason as they please as to the injustice of an eternity of punishment
for a life of sin — the utter want of proportion between a few years of wrong-
doing and endless ages of torment in the lake of fire. They may reason, but I
thoroughly believe, and unreservedly confess, that for a single sin against such a
Being as the God whom I see at the cross, I richly deserved everlasting
punishment in the deep, dark, and dismal pit of hell.
I am not writing as a theologian; if I were, it would be a very easy task indeed to
bring an unanswerable array of scripture evidence in proof of the solemn truth
of eternal punishment. But no; I am writing as one who has been divinely taught
the true desert of sin, and that desert I calmly, deliberately, and solemnly
declare, is, and can be, nothing less than eternal exclusion from the presence of
God and the Lamb — eternal torment in the lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone.
But — eternal hallelujahs to the God of all grace! — instead of sending
us to hell because of our sins, He sent His Son to be the propitiation for
those sins. And in the unfolding of the marvellous plan of redemption, we see a
holy God dealing with the question of our sins, and executing judgment upon
them in the Person of His well-beloved, eternal, and co-equal Son, in order that
the full flood-tide of His love might flow down into our hearts. "Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4: 10.
Now this must give peace to the conscience, if only it be received in the
simplicity of faith. How is it possible for a person to believe that God has
satisfied Himself as to his sins, and not have peace? If God says to us, "Your
sins and iniquities I will remember no more," what could we desire further as a
basis of peace for our conscience? If God assures me that all my sins are
blotted out as a thick; cloud — that they are cast behind His back — for
ever gone from His sight — should I not have peace? If He shows me the
Man who bore my sins on the cross, now crowned at the right hand of the
Majesty in the heavens, ought not my soul to enter into perfect rest as to the
question of my sins? Most assuredly.
For how, let me ask, did Christ reach the place which He now fills on the throne
of God? Was it as God over all, blessed for ever? No; for He was always that.
Was it as the eternal Son of the Father? No; He was ever that — ever in the
bosom of the Father — the object of the Father's eternal and ineffable delight.
Was it as a spotless, holy, perfect Man, whose nature was absolutely pure,
perfectly free from sin? No; for in that character, and on that ground, He could
at any moment, between the manger and the cross, have claimed a place at the
right hand of God. How was it then? Eternal praise to the God of all grace! it
was as the One who had by His death accomplished the glorious work of
redemption — the One who had stood charged with the full weight of our
sins — he One who had perfectly satisfied all the righteous claims of that
throne on which He now sits.
This is a grand, cardinal point for the anxious reader to seize. It cannot fail to
emancipate the heart, and tranquilize the conscience. We cannot possibly behold
by faith the Man who was nailed to the tree, now crowned on the throne, and
not have peace with God. The Lord Jesus Christ, having taken upon Himself
our sins, and the judgment due to them, He could not be where He now is if a
single one of those sins remained unatoned for. To see the sin-bearer crowned
with glory is to see our sins gone for ever from the divine presence. Where
are our sins? They are all obliterated. How do we know this? The One who
took them all upon Himself has passed through the heavens to the very
highest pinnacle of glory. Eternal justice has wreathed His blessed brow with a
diadem of glory, as the Accomplisher of our redemption — the Bearer of our
sins; thus proving, beyond all question, or possibility of a question, that
our sins are all put away out of God's sight for ever. A crowned Christ,
and a clear conscience, are, in the blessed economy of grace, inseparably
linked together. Wondrous fact! Well may we chant with all our ransomed
powers the praises of redeeming love.
But let us see how this most consolatory truth is set forth in Holy Scripture. In
Romans 3 we read, "But now the righteousness of God, without law [coris
nomou], is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the
righteousness of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that
believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the
glory of God; being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in his
blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission [or passing over] of sins
that are past [in time gone by], through the forbearance of God; to declare at
this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which
believeth in Jesus."
Again, in Romans 4, speaking of Abraham's faith being counted to him for
righteousness, the apostle adds, "Now it was not written for his sake alone, that
it was imputed to him: but for as also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe
on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our
offences, and raised again for our justification." Here we have God introduced
to our souls as the One who raised from the dead the Bearer of our sins.
Why did He do so? Because the One who had been delivered for our offences
had perfectly glorified Him respecting those offences, and put them away for
ever. God not only sent His only begotten Son into the world, but He bruised
Him for our iniquities, and raised Him from the dead, in order that we might
know and believe that our iniquities are all disposed of in such a manner as to
glorify Him infinitely and everlastingly. Eternal and universal homage to His
name!
But we have farther testimony on this grand fundamental truth. In Hebrews 1
we read such soul-stirring words as these: "God, who at sundry times and in
divers manners [or in divers measures and modes] spake in times past unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by [His] Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and
upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged
our sins sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Our Lord Christ,
blessed be His name, would not take His seat on the throne of God, until
he had, by the offering of Himself on the cross, purged our sins. Hence a
risen Christ at God's right hand is the glorious and unanswerable proof
that our sins are all gone, for He could not be where He now is if a single
one of those sins remained. God raised from the dead the self-same Man on
whom He Himself had laid the full weight of our sins. Thus all is settled —
divinely, eternally settled. It is as impossible that a single sin can be found
on the very weakest believer in Jesus, as on Jesus Himself. This is a
wonderful thing to be able to say, but it is the solid truth of God,
established in manifold places in holy scripture; and the soul that believes
it must possess a peace which the world can neither give nor take away.
~CHM
Further Reading:
Dead with Christ, Risen with Christ
Living According to God's Word -- Not according to The World
The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ
A Just God and Savior
Grace Upon Grace - John 1:16
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| THE ASSURANCE OF OUR SALVATION |