What is the Christian doctrine of salvation?

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.

Permit me then to point out the serious mistake — but not an uncommon one — into which you have fallen, and one which, if persisted in, cannot fail, through the subtlety of Satan, to rob you of all enjoyment of the knowledge of salvation. The fact is, God does not testify to sinners in this way. The testimony He renders is to CHRIST, His own beloved Son, and His testimony is to the completeness and the efficacy of His finished work on the cross. He tells you indeed that you have sinned and come short of His glory, and that it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment (Rom. 3:23; Heb. 9:27); and thereon He proclaims that a work has been accomplished, on the foundation of which He is able righteously to save every one that comes to Him in the name of Christ. The question therefore you have to ask yourself is, Do you believe God's testimony to Christ? But it is possible that you may ask for the character of this testimony. The grand testimony God has rendered to Christ is His resurrection from the dead; and hence the prominence which this fact obtains in the apostolic preaching. Take an example or two. "Him," said Peter to the Jews, "hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." (Acts 5:31.) "If Christ is not raised," said Paul, "your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." (1 Cor. 15:17.) Again, "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Rom. 4:25.) God thus set His seal upon the work of Christ in raising Him out of death; and in glorifying Him at His own right hand, He declares in His word, not only that all His claims upon the sinner have been met by the perfect efficacy of the sacrifice on the cross, but also that He has been so glorified in that death, that He can, in perfect consistency with all that He is — in harmony with all His attributes — and indeed with glory to Himself, save every poor sinner who receives His testimony to the death and resurrection of Christ.

But when we look at the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all these shadows pointed, we are taught that He "once suffered for sins," "died for our sins," rose again from among the dead, and went into heaven itself by His own blood, now to appear before the face of God for us. Christ is thus in heaven for us, the everlasting witness that propitiation for sins has been made; and the infinite and eternal efficacy of His blood is always before God. The claims of God's throne have, therefore, been righteously and fully met for all that come to God by Him; for Christ died for all. Because of this, God can now send out a world-wide message of forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation, and as "a just God and a Saviour" welcome, and justify from all things, every one that believes in Jesus. As we have seen, the whole value of His accomplished work is always before God; for Jesus Christ the Righteous is there, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world; so that God can now say, as to every sinner who comes to Him for salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, "Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom," or, as the margin reads, "an atonement." Thus the believer has a place of perfect peace in God's presence in divine righteousness, and the gospel is sent freely to every creature under heaven.

When we come to the Lord Jesus as sinners and accept Him as our Savior, God forgives our sins and justifies us because of the shed blood of Christ (Rom. 3:23-26).

When we come, however, to the Epistles, and particularly that to the Romans, the doctrine of atonement is developed to the fullest extent. Here, as we have already seen, first man's guilt and lost condition are presented. Every mouth is stopped, and all the world brought in "guilty before God." Then divine righteousness, which must condemn the guilty, is seen to be on the side of the guilty sinner who accepts the sacrifice which God has provided. Indeed, it sets forth our Lord Jesus Christ as a propitiatory, or mercy-seat — a meeting-place, through faith, on the ground of His blood, whereby we can approach to God. Not only is there forgiveness of sins, but a positive justification, resting upon this basis. The effects of this justification are "peace with God," access into His presence, rejoicing in hope of His glory; while God Himself becomes, instead of our dread, our exceeding joy, through our Lord Jesus Christ, "by whom we have now received the reconciliation."

I was very much struck lately with a passage in the eleventh of Romans: "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more of grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work" (Rom. 11:5-6). How then am I saved? By pure sovereign grace. So wrote the apostle Paul to the Ephesians: "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). It is the blessed, precious, sovereign grace that has come to all of us in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. What we need, as sinners, is salvation. That salvation the grace of God has brought to us. If grace then has brought salvation, what have I now to do? I have to avail myself of that which God brings to me in the Person, and through the work, of the Lord Jesus Christ, — in plain language, I have to accept, by faith, the eternal salvation which grace brings to me.

On the basis of this perfect work of the Lord Jesus, every true believer is saved and accepted "in Christ." The value of His sacrifice is put to the account of the believer. Thus Paul writes, "by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Eph.2:8‑9). Some people think that works must be added to grace and faith in order for one to be saved, but God says, "not of works." We must give the Lord Jesus credit for accomplishing a perfect salvation by His own work. If we add anything of self to it, we only spoil it.

Salvation is not procurable by human efforts, for Titus 3:5-6 points out that we are saved by God's mercy, and not by works of righteousness which we have done. This is also emphasised in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works lest any man should boast." God in sovereign love has secured this great salvation for us in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Aged Simeon knew this when he said, "Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." The Samaritans learned it when they heard Jesus speaking, for they said, "We know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." There must be personal contact with the Son of God to know Him as the Saviour. Peter, the great apostle, who truly knew the Lord said of Him, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

The personal character of present salvation should therefore be laid hold of by us. It is of the last importance to do so in these days of departure from the truth, and apostasy from the faith. To be saved, is to be saved! To be unsaved, is to be lost! The final issue is fast approaching! The coming of the Lord draweth nigh! The lights of the oil-less lamp-holders are going out! Those who “have not received the love of the truth that might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10) will soon be carried away by the strong sweeping currents of error, “that they should believe what is false, that all might be judged who have not believed the truth, but have found pleasure in unrighteousness” (v. 12). God has no pleasure in this, but desires rather that “all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). The Son of God came not to judge the world, “but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17 and 12:47). Upon the cross He bore the believer’s sin, and the judgment that those sins deserved; moreover, He was raised again from among the dead for their justification. On the basis of that work the believer is saved, for it is on account of this God righteously forgives sins, and the gospel brings “the knowledge of salvation … by the remission of their sins” (Luke 1:77). The first person outside of Judaism to be reached by the glad tidings was Cornelius. He heard words whereby he and all his house were saved (Acts 11:14). Those words pointed him to Christ, through whose Name everyone that believes on Him receives remission of sins (10:43). Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, for grace alone could meet the need of such; and while It is truly by the grace of God such are justified freely, through the great redemption which is in Christ Jesus, it is likewise true, we are “saved by grace” (Eph. 2:5, 8); not on the principle of works, so that none might boast. Grace is in Christ Jesus, and so is salvation (2 Tim. 2:1, 10). This latter is obtained there through faith, whether in regard to judgment, enemies, state, adverse influences, this present evil world or age. “Neither is there salvation in any other.”

As in creation, so in the matter of salvation, the Son is the person Who works out the divine purpose to its appointed end. He came into the world to save sinners; yet men are not saved by His incarnation, but by His atoning death. The death of Christ has furnished God with an irrefragable ground of righteousness on which to act in His grace towards perishing men. Nothing is demanded from men but faith — simple confidence in God and His beloved Son. He who in his deep need turns his eye in faith to God and Christ becomes at once entitled to all the advantages of Christ's most costly sacrifice.

Salvation is presented in the New Testament in a threefold way. (1) It is a PRESENT thing, in the sense of acceptance with God. The Christian is now "in Christ," and is consequently beyond condemnation, justified and reconciled. He stands in the divine favour now and for ever, and is loved as Christ is loved. So we read in Eph. 2:8. "By grace ye are saved through faith." In 2 Tim. 1:9 also: "God who has saved us." The Spirit's use of the present tense in these passages should dissipate every unbelieving doubt and fear. Doubts and fears are an insult to the love of God and a dishonour to the work of the Lord Jesus.