THERE is peculiar sweetness in the word salvation, and none know its meaning so well as souls divinely convicted of their sins; as those who have been brought to see that they have destroyed themselves, and have no strength whatever to save themselves. Oh, the sweetness of the word salvation to such! Salvation from sin; salvation from Satan’s thralldom; salvation from hell; and salvation for eternal glory. We are saved from something, and for something,— from outer darkness, for the light of God’s countenance, and His eternal glory.
God―blessed be His holy name! —is the author of man’s salvation. “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:99But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. (Jonah 2:9)). Jonah is but a picture of the sinner. He had sinned, disobeyed, and run away from God; then, cast overboard, and swallowed by the great fish, prepared by God, there, at the bottom of the sea, he learned what his sin was, how he had destroyed himself, and that his only hope was in God. So at the end he cried, “Salvation is of the Lord.” As soon as that was confessed, “The Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land” (2:10).
Salvation to him meant something. It was from the misery and horror of his condition in the fish’s belly, to be brought to enjoy the light of day, to tread the place of safety, and to serve the blessed God who had saved him.
So with the sinner; it is from the darkness and ruin of nature, from a state of death and condemnation, from the power and kingdom of Satan, from the pit of everlasting woe, he is saved. And God, the blessed Saviour-God, is He who has saved him, for His service here and His glory hereafter. Oh, let it be well remembered that “Salvation is of the Lord.”
But it is also a blood-purchased salvation. Let this be well noted. If it cost us nothing, if it is as free to us as the very air we breathe, and as full as the ocean’s tide, let us adoringly remember that it cost the Son of God everything. He became poor, He was rejected, spit upon, buffeted, nailed to the accursed tree, was forsaken of God, and poured out the price of our salvation in His most precious blood. The Son of God died! What for? That it might be possible for God to say, in matchless grace, “Deliver him (the sinner) from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom” (Job 33:2424Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. (Job 33:24)). Oh, that sweet word “Deliver!” Who can realize the sweetness of it so well as a sinner, “wakened up from wrath to flee,” and finding out that God alone can deliver?
God can stand then upon the ground of the death of His dear Son, and say of every repentant soul, “Deliver him,”― “deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.” Oh, my reader, are you delivered? Has God saved you with that salvation purchased by His dear Son on the cross? Can you say, “Thank God, I am saved?”
It is of the utmost importance for us to see that it is a present salvation. God “looketh upon men and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; he will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light” (Job 33:27, 2827He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; 28He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. (Job 33:27‑28)). Here is present deliverance, present salvation, for all who take the ground of repentance. The sinner’s “I have sinned,” is met by God’s “Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.” It is always so, from Genesis to Revelation. God meets the repentant one with a divine, blood-purchased, present, and everlasting salvation. God “hath saved us,” says the Apostle, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Tim. 1:99Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, (2 Timothy 1:9)). Oh, precious statement of our salvation! What clearness! what simplicity! “God hath saved us.” “By grace ye are saved” (Eph. 2:55Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) (Ephesians 2:5)).
Then it is a great and an everlasting salvation. It is great, because God, who is great in love and rich in mercy, is the author of it; because it was obtained by a great and mighty sacrifice, that of Christ on the tree; and because it was designed for great sinners, in great need, doomed to a great and eternal destruction. It is an everlasting salvation, because it is the purchase of a once offered, an eternally accepted sacrifice, and because God says that it is. We, who believe, have eternal life, eternal forgiveness, eternal redemption, and are called to inherit eternal glory. Oh, what manner of persons ought we to be!
Thus, God is the author of our salvation. Christ has purchased it; and it is a present, great, perfect, glorious, and everlasting salvation. Oh, let our hearts ring out His praises, now, and forever.
E. A.