What are the four steps to salvation?

Let me dwell for a moment, if one soul be here tonight not clear in the gospel. Just put these few testimonies together. First of all, the blessed Saviour is divine. Because He is divine He is able to do every thing, able to save, able to cleanse, able to keep, able to present you faultless before His presence with joy in heaven. Then He is Man, — Man so that He could die for us, so that He could lay down that perfect life upon the cross as a sin-offering for us. You and I deserve to be judged for our sins. Christ could be judged in our place because He is Man, and as man die and make atonement for sin. You have a divine Saviour, almighty; you have a human Saviour who died for us. Next, John testifies of repentance. What have I to do? to work for my salvation? to turn over a new leaf? to reform? to give up my bad habits? — is that what God asks? Nay; dear friends; Repent! is the command; and repentance is owning that I am a sinner, taking my place as a guilty, helpless, worthless sinner, not able to do a single thing for salvation, not able to work my way into heaven, but just owning that I am helpless, guilty, vile, and undone. What then? Look away from self, look away from what you are, — your sins, though they be like scarlet, look off there at the Lamb of God, and what do you see? One who takes away the sin of the world, who removes the guilt, takes off that awful load that was on your conscience, sweeps forever from view that black cloud of your sins that was between you and God. Look at the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world! What a blessed Gospel! what a testimony! — a divine and human Saviour, repentance, and faith in Christ who died for us!

One needs to be saved by Christ before one can serve Him. Salvation is of grace and by faith. It was Christ Who alone bore the burden. We contributed the sins, and nothing else; but awakened by the word and Spirit of God we repented and believed the gospel. How is it with you, dear reader? Beware of going on in dark uncertainty. The true light already shines since the Son of God came. Turn not your back on Him, lest the true character of yourself and your works should be shown as they are. Be honest Godward. Confess yourself a sinner, and your deeds evil. Receive Jesus as the one divine Saviour, expressly sent by and from God to save the lost. We were indeed bondmen of sin; but set free from sin by the Saviour, we would henceforth yield our members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness, each the Lord's freedman, now Christ's bondman.

Now, faith, as we have seen, is always conjoined with repentance; and while repentance is toward God, faith is toward the Lord Jesus Christ. The explanation of this is very simple. It is against God we have sinned, and it is He who has passed judgment upon our sins; so that, when we are convicted of our guilt, it is to Him we turn with confession and self-judgment. In this state our one need is to learn the way of salvation, just as when the jailer, conscience-smitten, rushed into the presence of Paul and Silas, and cried, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Their answer was the presentation of Christ. "Believe," they said, "on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." (Acts 16:30-31.) This, as the reader may perceive, is a summary of what was said; for we read in the next verse that they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. But the fact of the term — the Lord Jesus Christ — being used, shows that it was a full gospel they preached — the gospel concerning His person, His death and resurrection, and His present exaltation as Lord at the right hand of God. The jailer received, through grace, the testimony thus delivered, and there was therefore in his soul faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. He believed God's testimony to the finished work of Christ on the cross, to the value of that work before God as having made full and perfect atonement for sin, and also to the testimony to His resurrection; so that he could then say, "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

Now, faith, as we have seen, is always conjoined with repentance; and while repentance is toward God, faith is toward the Lord Jesus Christ. The explanation of this is very simple. It is against God we have sinned, and it is He who has passed judgment upon our sins; so that, when we are convicted of our guilt, it is to Him we turn with confession and self-judgment. In this state our one need is to learn the way of salvation, just as when the jailor, conscience-smitten, rushed into the presence of Paul and Silas, and cried, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Their answer was the presentation of Christ. "Believe," they said, "on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." (Acts 16:30-31.) This, as the reader may perceive, is a summary of what was said; for we read in the next verse that they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. But the fact of the term - the Lord Jesus Christ - being used, shows that it was a full gospel they preached - the gospel concerning His person, His death and resurrection, and His present exaltation as Lord at the right hand of God. The jailor received, through grace, the testimony thus delivered, and there was therefore in his soul faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. He believed God's testimony to the finished work of Christ on the cross, to the value of that work before God as having made full and perfect atonement for sin, and also to the testimony to His resurrection; so that he could then say, "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

N*. All of them. That is the point. If Christ bore all my sins and I through grace believe in Him, the whole matter is settled as to their being put away. God works by His word and Spirit in us, so that we are brought to repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; we have a new life, are born of God; and there are various ministrations of grace by the way. But the matter is settled with God for my soul as to forgiveness and salvation. As the Lord said to the poor woman, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; thy faith hath saved thee"; and He did not deceive her, nor say it for her alone.

No doubt salvation is as free as the grace of God can make it. Moreover, it is all of God from first to last. God is its source, Christ its channel, the Holy Spirit its power of application and enjoyment. All this is blessedly true, but we must never forget that man is a responsible being, a guilty sinner commanded to repent and turn to God. It is not that repentance has any saving virtue in it. As well might we assert that the feelings of a drowning man could save him from drowning or that a man could make a fortune by a deed of bankruptcy filed against him. Salvation is wholly of grace; it is of the Lord in its every stage and every aspect. We cannot be too emphatic in the statement of all this, but at the same time we must remember that our blessed Lord and His apostles constantly urged upon men, both Jews and Gentiles, the solemn duty of repentance.

Repentance toward God then is not the gospel of His grace, nor is it remission of sins, but is that inward work in the conscience by the Holy Spirit's use of the word, without which the privileges of the gospel are vain and only hurry on the soul the more rashly to destruction. The low views which make repentance a human work as a preface to faith are no less objectionable than the so-called high views which merge all in faith making repentance no more than a change of mind. Neither legalism nor antinomianism are of God, but the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. Truth does not spare the flesh or its works, faith and repentance bow in self-loathing to Christ, and grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So it ever is. The message of God to sinners (and all are such), when by grace received, deals with the conscience and not merely with the affections. Repentance ensues no less than faith, repentance by God's word judging all within, and faith in receiving God's word and God's gift from without. This now is fully revealed in Christ; and He is life, "Christ our life." For the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining, and in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, and consequently the seal of the Spirit. For it is of God that the soul, repentant and believing, should know grace and truth, beyond even what the Samaritan could then bear. Nor does any falsehood more dishonour the gospel than the dim religious light or rather darkness, which would plunge souls and even believing souls in uncertainty, and belie the God of all grace as if He begrudged the blessing to the contrite spirit.

Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, are rightly and necessarily pressed in the preaching: God now commands all men everywhere to repent. Works meet for repentance are rightly looked for. The joy of God’s great salvation can only thus be known; but what a change takes place with the one who knows this, when he discovers that the very God he had sinned against took the initiative in his salvation and blessing, and that for His own pleasure. His joy in this is infinitely greater than ours can be. His redeeming love has been made manifest not simply to meet our need, but according to His own good pleasure, and to the praise of the glory of His grace.

"True faith is the work of the Holy Ghost in the soul, revealing the object of faith in divine power; so that the heart receives it on divine testimony, as divine truth, and a divine fact. … It is really identical with the communication of a new life by the power of the Holy Ghost, through the word. Hence, we are said to be the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; to be born of the Spirit, and to be begotten by the word of truth. Faith is the divinely-given perception of things not seen, wrought through the word of God by the Spirit. … If the word reveals a divine person in grace, He becomes the object of trust; if a work, its efficacy becomes the ground of confidence. But the trust and the confidence is not the faith. Faith is then the real vivid perception of what cannot be known by sight: — God — Christ — anything revealed of God being the object. If there is merely a mental conclusion, as in the end of John 2, or assent to a proposition, it is worthless. If it is the revelation of the object of faith to the soul, by the Holy Ghost, it is real and living; and this only is true faith. Further, though all rightly preached together, we must not confound faith in the person, and faith in the work of Christ. The latter alone can give peace to the conscience (unless the direct revelation of God as by Nathan to David, or Christ to the woman that was a sinner); but the former is always held out as the first proper object of faith; while Scripture declares, that whosoever believes on Him, is under the benefit of His work. Faith in Him is quickening and saving. Peace of conscience according to God's declaration, belongs to those who do believe in virtue of His work. The difference connects itself with the question of repentance. … All who know what grace is, believe that faith precedes repentance, and everything else that is good and right in man. Otherwise he would have what is good, before he believed the truth at all; he would have it without God. And as to repentance, substantially, the whole moral change, the essence and substance of his return to God would have been effected without any truth at all. For if he repents through the truth, he must believe the truth in order to repent. … I judge repentance to be a much deeper thing than is thought. It is the judgment of the new man in divine light and grace, on all that he who repents, has been, or done in flesh. … Hence, repentance will in one sense deepen all one's life, as the knowledge of God grows." ["Further Remarks upon Righteousness and Law" pp. 39-45. J. N. D.]