What is salvation through Jesus Christ?

Christ alone is the sinner's salvation. He alone meets all our need. "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." Clearly, then, the Son must be received, or we can never receive eternal life, for the life is in Him. The one question then is, Have I received the Son as my eternal life — my eternal all? When Christ is received by faith, all is received — life — righteousness — pardon — peace, and acceptance.

How, then, we may ask in conclusion, are we connected with Christ? It is by faith. "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life" (John 3:36). Again, "He that believes on Me has everlasting life" (John 6:47). "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts 16:31). "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1). God, in the Gospel, presents the Christ, of whom we have spoken, as the Saviour. It is therefore the Gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4), as well as of God's grace. Receiving His testimony, bowing before Him, in self-judgment, exercising repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, we are saved, linked with Christ, and are brought to God in all the acceptance of Christ Himself. Every believer is thus associated with Christ before God, and is brought into the enjoyment of all that Christ is for us, as well as of all the blessings which He has secured for us through His meritorious death and resurrection. How unspeakably blessed, then, is it to be enabled by the Spirit of God to say, Christ our Saviour. Beloved reader, are you able to claim Him as such? If not, how unspeakably sorrowful is your position. But God, even now, in the tender yearnings of His grace, meets you, as He directs your gaze to Christ at His own right hand, and proclaims by His Word, "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life." If you are able to call Him your Saviour, then we have no words to express your blessedness; but we may remind you of the obligation under which you are thereby placed, to show, by word and life, that you are saved, and to testify to that grace which has called you out of darkness into God's marvellous light.

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."

And it is with faith, as so exercised, that remission of sins is always connected. This will be at once understood, if the reader will turn to the passage already cited from Luke 24, where repentance and remission of sins are linked together, both to be preached in the name of the risen Christ. For the moment there is the reception of God's testimony concerning the death and resurrection of Christ, forgiveness of sins is enjoyed. Repentance brings into a right state of soul before God; faith identifies the soul with all the value of the work of Christ. Both therefore are absolutely necessary for salvation.

The Lord Jesus is in every way the Saviour, not from divine punishment only but from sins. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offences according to the riches of God's grace. But in Him we have life also, life eternal, for He is the Son, and gives nothing less than this life to everyone that believes on Him. And life in Christ is the indispensable basis of the new nature, and of our new relationships and duties, affections and privileges, crowned since redemption with the indwelling Spirit for the Christian and for the church, that both might have an immediate link with God and power from Him.

The testimony of Jesus Himself, the records of the Old and New Testaments, the witness of prophets and apostles, all concur in directing the serpent-bitten, sin-sick soul to the Lord Jesus who was crucified, and to him alone, fox everlasting life; and blessed indeed are those, who, by faith in Him, escape eternal death so fully deserved, and receive eternal life so wholly undeserved, but freely given. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3:36.)

First, God’s acceptance of the work of Christ as performed on behalf of sinners. This is proved by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Second, God’s acceptance of the sinner, who puts his trust in the Lord, and the bestowal upon him of salvation, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. Salvation! “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). Forgiveness of sins! “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). Eternal life! “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life” (John 3:36). Acceptance! “He has made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). “We believe and are SURE” (John 6:69).

Thus the soul's salvation is based, not upon man's doings, such as obedience to the law, nor even upon God's unconditional promise, such as Abraham was given, but upon fully established facts: the Son of God has come: He has died, and risen again. This is sound, settled truth, appropriated and clearly understood by honest faith. What more can be desired to prove the perfect settlement of the sin question? What more sure and perfect ground for the eternal salvation of every soul who trusts Him?

However, it is well to see with distinctness, that the same truth which gives the soul settled peace, puts it also into the position of intelligent worship, acceptable service, and effectual testimony. In the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, the apostle sets forth the death and resurrection of Christ as the grand foundation of everything. "Moreover brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached to you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures." (Ver. 1-4) Here is the gospel, in one brief and comprehensive statement. A dead and risen Christ is the ground-work of salvation. "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." (Rom. 4:25) To see Jesus, by the eye of faith, nailed to the cross, and seated on the throne, must give solid peace to the conscience and perfect liberty to the heart. We can look into the tomb and see it empty; we can look up to the throne, and see it occupied, and go on our way rejoicing. The Lord Jesus settled everything on the cross on behalf of His people; and the proof of this settlement is that He is now at the right hand of God. A risen Christ is the eternal proof of an accomplished redemption; and if redemption is an accomplished fact, the believer's peace is a settled reality. We did not make peace and never could make it; indeed, any effort on our part to make peace could only tend more fully to manifest us as peace breakers. But Christ, having made peace by the blood of His cross, has taken His seat on high, triumphant over every enemy. By Him God preaches peace. The Lord of the gospel conveys this peace; and the soul that believes the gospel has peace — settled peace before God, for Christ is his peace. (See Acts 10:36; Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:14; Col. 1:20.) In this way, God has not only satisfied His own claims, but, in so doing, He has found out a divinely-righteous vent through which His boundless affections may flow down to the guiltiest of Adam's guilty progeny.

It is necessarily, therefore, faith which saves, just because it is Christ who saves; it is not the value of faith in itself, although there is value in faith; for it is the real active principle in every soul: so that it can be said, "Faith, if it have not works, is dead, being alone." It works because it puts Christ in His place, and so God (as manifested in Christ) in His also. But as contrasted with works it is the very confession of creature nothingness and worthlessness, in which it lays hold of Another as all its competence and all its boast. Repentance and faith are thus but the opposite sides of the amazing change which is wrought in conversion: the one is the face turned towards God, as the other is the back turned upon self. Each therefore implies the other.

There are many aspects of salvation. In Matthew 1:21 we read of Jesus coming to save His people from their sins; and in Luke 1:71 Zacharias spoke of Jesus coming “that we might be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us.” The death of Christ has saved us from the consequences of our guilt, from the power of sin, from the power of Satan, and from the fear of death. Soon, at the coming of the Lord, we shall be saved from the judgment that will overtake a world that knows not, and desires not, God and His Christ, a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:5).