What is the goal of our salvation?

He told us the next evening that God was very good to him, for He had found suitable work early in the day, and at this he stuck well, and soon showed the result of his conversion in a decidedly changed appearance. Some time afterwards a friend of ours met him, but did not at first recognize him, so altered was he from the dissipated wreck that he was when first we made his acquaintance. "You see," he explained to our friend, "when the Lord took me in hand He made a good job of me. He not only saved my soul, but He washed and brushed me up." We were very glad to know that he had been washed and brushed up; we should not have believed in the reality of has conversion if these things had not accompanied it, but that was not the end that the Lord had in view when He took him in hand. God does not save men to make their lives more respectable, or their homes happier, though these things will surely be amongst the results produced by His grace wherever it is received, for the grace of God which brings salvation teaches men how to behave; but that is not the great end that He has in view when He saves them. He saves them that they might be a people separated from the world and ready for the coming again of Christ, that they might, as the Scripture says, "serve the living and true God; and wait for His Son from heaven" (1 Thess. 1:9-10). The main purpose of the gospel is to gather out of this world a people for Christ, who in self-forgetful devotion to Him shall earnestly look for His coming again.

He told us the next evening that God was very good to him, for He had found suitable work early in the day, and at this he stuck well, and soon showed the result of his conversion in a decidedly changed appearance. Some time afterwards a friend of ours met him, but did not at first recognize him, so altered was he from the dissipated wreck that he was when first we made his acquaintance. “You see,” he explained to our friend, “when the Lord took me in hand He made a good job of me. He not only saved my soul, but He washed and brushed me up.” We were very glad to know that he had been washed and brushed up; we should not have believed in the reality of has conversion if these things had not accompanied it, but that was not the end that the Lord had in view when He took him in hand. God does not save men to make their lives more respectable, or their homes happier, though these things will surely be amongst the results produced by His grace wherever it is received, for the grace of God which brings salvation teaches men how to behave; but that is not the great end that He has in view when He saves them. He saves them that they might be a people separated from the world and ready for the coming again of Christ, that they might, as the Scripture says, “serve the living and true God; and wait for His Son from heaven” (1 Thess. 1:9-10). The main purpose of the gospel is to gather out of this world a people for Christ, who in self-forgetful devotion to Him shall earnestly look for His coming again.

Yes, it is good to have the soul stirred up to unflagging zeal for the salvation of men, but there is something more: something greater, higher and more blessed, and that is to have definitely and fully before the soul what lies behind God's activities of grace with men. Why is He saving them? It is that He might bring them to His holy habitation, and every soul brought to Christ is a stone for that building — a living stone.

The end, too, God has in view must command his soul. Sinners are saved in to be worshippers; they are saved in this present time to form part of the church—the bride of Christ. They make up the ecclesia, the called-out ones from among the nations.

Israel was saved out of Egypt in order that they might enjoy the land to which God called them. We are saved from the world, the flesh, the devil, and the wrath of God which is to come, in order that we may enjoy God's call to the place of sons and share the coming glory of Christ. The salvation which is ours in Christ is a very mighty and wonderful thing; and thereby we are liberated to enjoy our calling. Yet all those things to which we are called according to the sovereign purpose of God are more wonderful still.

Thank God, it is not being merely saved from the consequences of our sins that will suit the heart of the blessed God, wonderful and necessary as that is, and we ought never to lose the wonder of it. But God desires our company, and to be consciously in His presence means worship. Worship is the highest exercise the creature is capable of. Not only are we saved, but we are brought to God, and “accepted in the Beloved”—sons before the Father’s face, priests in association with the Son of God, our great High Priest.

How wonderful to think that nothing could satisfy the heart and mind of God but to gather His people round Himself and feed them with that in which He Himself delights! "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ." (1 John 1) What more could even the love of God do for us than this? And for whom has He done it? For those who were dead in trespasses and sins — for aliens, enemies, guilty rebels — for dogs of the Gentiles — for those who were far from Him, having no hope, and without God in the world — for those who, had we our deserts, should be now burning in the eternal flames of hell. Oh! what wondrous grace! What profound depths of sovereign mercy! And, we must add, what a divinely precious atoning sacrifice, to bring poor self-destroyed, guilty, hell-deserving sinners into such ineffable blessedness! — to pluck us as brands from everlasting burnings, and make us priests to God! — to take away all our "filthy garments" from us, and cleanse, clothe, and crown us, in His own presence, and to His own praise! May we praise Him! May our hearts and lives praise Him! May we know how to enjoy our priestly place and portion, and to wear our mitre well! We can do nothing better than praise God — nothing higher than to present to Him, by Jesus Christ, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. This shall be our everlasting employment in that bright and blessed world to which we are hastening, and where we shall soon be, to dwell for ever with Him who has loved us and given Himself for us — our own blessed Saviour God — to go no more out for evermore.

God, in His infinite grace, has brought His people to Himself; they were of Adam fallen, but now, having eternal life given them, they are partakers of the divine nature. They were, by reason of their wicked works, children of Satan, but now they dwell in God and God in them, and entirely because God in His sovereignty has made them His. Far more than salvation is theirs. Salvation from sin, the world, and Satan, is a theme of intense gladness, every word of which redounds to the grace of God; but the Father's name and association with Himself and the Son of His love opens up such thoughts of future joy and understanding of God, that its lengths, breadths, depths, and heights are utterly overwhelming. The love of the Father and the Son are simply inconceivable, save when entered into from the only centre whence they can be rightly known.

We are saved and blessed in Christ — not alone as a matter of mercy and philanthropy, but with a view to the setting out before all worlds and for eternity the ineffable blessedness of God's character; of the delight it is to Him to bless and of His purpose to surround Himself with a universe where everything will exhibit His attributes and with creatures redeemed and blessed, made capable of intelligent response to His love, wisdom and power and glory. He will be known as GOD indeed by all, supreme, purposeful, irresistible, triumphant, blessed beyond words, the vast creation rejoicing in the light of all that God is.

God delights in mercy and desires to display before the universe the character of His grace. He has not taken up angels for this, but men who once were sinners far from Him: who were dead in trespasses and, in sins. Why did He, in sovereign mercy, lay hold of the chief of sinners, who was persecuting His Son? Surely it was to display in him, in the coming ages, the exceeding riches of His grace. And in that wonderful display there will be myriads of saints; every one taken out of this world, rescued from the dreadful state of death in which mercy found him, and every one there a monument of what God's rich grace has wrought. Nor has God simply brought each and all from the wreckage of human nature, but He has given them the very best place in heaven along with His Son. It would have been wonderful grace, had we been forgiven our sins, and been left on earth for ever in our mixed condition: and such a place might well have satisfied us; but it could not have satisfied the heart of God. He wanted us in the best place along with His own dear Son; His love resting on us, as it rests on Him and in the same glory in which His Christ is displayed. When the great intelligences of the universe (and all who are able to see the church along with Christ in the coming ages) gaze upon Christ in His glory, and see the church united to Him, they will see expressed in the great kindness of God towards us, the exceeding riches of His grace.