A. How can I get peace with God?
B. He has “made peace by the blood of His cross.”
A. I do not deny that — I believe it. But I have not peace, and how can I have that peace myself ?
B. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.”
A. Well, I know it is so written, but I have not peace — that I know. I wish I had, and I sometimes think I do not believe at all. I see you happy, but how is that happiness of soul to be had?
B. You do not think it presumptuous, then, to be at peace with God, in the assurance of His favor, and thus of our own salvation?
A. I think it would be in me, but I see it in Scripture, and therefore it must be right. And I see a few in whom one sees it is real. Though I get on from day to day as other Christians do, I am not at peace nor assured of divine favor resting upon me, as I see you and others enjoying it. And it is a serious thing, because (if, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God,” as you say and as I know Scripture says) I have not peace with God, and how then can I be justified?
B. It is because you have not the true knowledge of justification by faith. I do not say that you are not justified in God’s sight, but that your conscience has not possession of it. The Reformers, going too far in this, all held that if a man had not the assurance of his own salvation, he was not justified at all. Now, whoever believes in the Son of God is, in God’s sight, justified from all things. But till he sees this, as taught of God — till he apprehends the value of Christ’s work — he has no consciousness of it in his own soul, and, if in earnest, as you are, he is not at rest, nor is that peace solidly established till he knows he is “in Christ” as well as that Christ died for him. Thus the Christian’s getting on, as you say, day by day, is a false and hollow thing, which must, some time or other, be broken up. It is that which often causes distress on deathbeds. And the character of Christian activity is sadly deteriorated thereby; it is made a means of getting happy — not work in the power of the Spirit by a soul at peace. If a person is really serious and walks before God, he cannot rest in spirit till he be at peace with Him, and the deeper all these exercises are the better. But God has made peace by the blood of the cross, and all these exercises are merely bringing up the weeds to the surface, as plowing and harrowing a field. They are useful in this way, but they are not the crop which faith in the finished work of Christ produces. His work is finished. “Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,” and He finished the work which His Father had given Him to do (John 17:44I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (John 17:4)). That work, which puts away our sins, is complete and accepted of God. If you come to God by Him and your sins are not all put away completely and forever by His sacrifice, they never can be, for He cannot die again.
A. I see this more clearly, and that it is a perfect work, done once for all.
B. What more do you want then in order to have peace?
A. Well, that is what I want to see clearly.
B. I am anxious, before we speak of your state and hindrances, to have the work itself clearly before your mind. Who did this work?
A. Why, Christ, of course.
B. What part had you in completing it?
A. None.
B. None, surely, unless we say your sins. And to what state of your soul does it apply —a saved or an unsaved state?
A. Well, must not I be holy?
B. Surely; without holiness no man shall see the Lord (Heb. 12:1414Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: (Hebrews 12:14)). But do you see how quickly and with the instinct of self-righteousness you turn from Christ’s work to your own holiness — to what you are? How quickly man resents that which makes nothing of him and his self-approbation. Your desire of holiness, however, is the desire of the new man. Were you indifferent to it, one’s work would be to seek to awaken your conscience, not to talk of peace — rather, perhaps, to break up false peace. But we are now inquiring how an anxious soul can find peace.
A. Yes, I am sadly indifferent sometimes, and this is one thing that troubles me, and I would give anything to have peace of soul.
B. I do not doubt such indifference retards your finding it, but we have humbly to learn what we are. The gain of a few dollars would give more earnestness to many a soul.
But I repeat my question: Does this work of Christ apply to your sinful state or to a good or improved condition?
A. Why, to my sinfulness, of course.
B. Undoubtedly. Consequently, not to your holiness, if there were any, nor to an improved state. Yet, what are you looking for to get peace? Is it not an improved state of soul?
A. Why, yes.
B. Then you are on the wrong road, for that by which Christ has made peace applies to your sinfulness. Your desire is right, but you are putting the cart before the horse, as men speak; you are looking for holiness to be sure that you have Christ, instead of having Christ to get holiness.
A. But I do look for His help in order to get it.
B. That I can believe, but you are looking for His help, not to His work or blood-shedding, for peace. You need righteousness first, not help. We need His help every moment after we are justified. He is the Author of every good thought in us before, but that is not the ground of peace. Yet this search is not without its fruit, because it leads you to see that you cannot thus find what you seek for. You will neither find holiness thus, nor peace by it, but in proving that while “to will is present,” you do not find “how to perform that which is good,” it will lead you to see that there is no good in you, and to that which does give peace — to Christ’s work — not to your state and the work of grace in you. God works to lead us out of ourselves, simply and wholly, and to trust in Christ’s work and its acceptance before God. But, come, where are you as to your standing before God?
A. I do not know. That is just what troubles me.
B. Are you lost?
A. I hope not. Of course we are all lost by nature, but I hope there is a work of grace in me, though I sometimes doubt it.
B. Suppose you stood before God now and your case had to be decided by your works, as it must in the judgment, where would you be?
A. I hope it would be right. I cannot help thinking there is a work of grace in me, but I cannot think of judgment without fear.
B. I trust there is a work of grace in you, but here is the turning point of our inquiry. What you want [need] is to be in God’s presence and to see that if God enters into judgment with you in righteousness and in respect of your state and works, you are simply lost! Now you are a sinner, and a sinner cannot subsist before God in judgment at all. It is not help you want (if actually in God’s presence), but righteousness, and this you have not got — I mean as to your own faith and conscience. Righteousness alone can suffice before God — the righteousness which is of God, for we have none. The work of grace in us does not produce this. It is by faith, through the work of Christ, in whom we possess it. Through Him God justifies the ungodly.
The case of the prodigal son will illustrate this. There was a work of God in him: He came to himself, found himself perishing, and set out toward his father. When setting out, he acknowledges his sins, adding, “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” There was uprightness, a sense of divine goodness, and a sense of sin, and he was drawing conclusions as to what he might hope for when he met his father, and so are you. He had what the world of Christians call humility and a humble hope; he was drawing conclusions, just as you are, which proved — what? That he had not yet met his father. If he had, he would not reason as to how he would be received when he did meet him. It is the position of one who had not yet met with God, though God had wrought in him. When he did meet his father, there is not a word of making him like the “hired servants.” There was the confession of sin fully, and his previous experience had brought him in his rags to his father — in his sins (not loving them, but in them and confessing them). The effect of this was that he then met God in his sins, as to his conscience, and that was all. And he had his father on his neck — grace reigned — and had the best robe — Christ, the righteousness of God, which no progress could give him. It was a new thing conferred on him.
When in God’s presence, we need Christ —not progress; we need righteousness and justification through Him — not help or improvement. God has helped us, or we should not have been there. There has been progress, but the progress has been to bring us into God’s presence, not to hope in our progress, but to judge of sin in His sight and to find Christ our perfect acceptance in His sight, instead of ourselves—Christ, who has borne our sins, who is our righteousness, perfect, absolute and eternal. It is not in looking at our progress that we find peace. Were it so, we would have to say, Therefore being justified by experience, we have peace with God, but this the Word of God never says. True progress as to this is our being brought as wholly lost sinners into God’s presence, confessing our sins and that in us, that is, in our flesh, there is no good thing (Rom. 7:1818For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:18)), and thus we have the consciousness that as a present thing, in our natural condition, we are lost. It is the discovery of what we are — our actual sins and our sinful nature — which is the real plague of an upright soul. But God gives Christ — Christ, “the best robe,” instead of our “rags.”
In finding Christ, believing in Him, we find the propitiation for our sins; He bore them in His own body on the tree. And, having Christ, He is our righteousness. God condemned sin in the flesh, when Christ was made an offering for sin, and we are not “in the flesh” but “in Christ.” Instead of Adam and his sin (that is, what we are in ourselves), we have Christ and the value of His work. This is true of everyone that believes in Christ, that comes to God by Him. Were we as simple as Scripture, it would be seen in a moment. But we are not, and we have to be cured of the self-righteousness of our hearts and, as mere sinners before God, to find that God in love has taken up the question of our sins and our evil nature, has anticipated the day of judgment, and has settled the question for everyone that comes with faith in Christ to Him. Once for all, on the cross, He has dealt with the sins which we should have had to answer for in the day of judgment. God dealt with them, putting them away according to His righteousness.
Sin and God met on the cross, when Christ was made sin for us, and by His death we have died to it and are the fruit of the travail of His soul. He bore the sins of many; He appeared to put away sin; He glorified God about it in righteousness in that momentous hour. He took what I had earned; I got the fruit of what He has done. Practically speaking, I come to God like Abel, with that sacrifice in my hand; God owns its value and gives me the testimony that I am righteous — the witness is borne to my gifts. My acceptance is according to the value of Christ’s sacrifice in God’s sight. Coming with that sacrifice is confessing, not improvement in my state, but the righteous exclusion of myself. I come with Christ in my hand, so to speak, my slain Lamb, and the testimony is to my gift. God looks at that when I thus come — not at my state, which is confessedly that of a sinner — only as a sinner, shut out from God.
A. But must not I accept Christ?
B. Ah, how “I” gets in — even in the most blessed testimonies of God’s ways towards us in grace! I say, “Here is Christ on God’s part for you — God’s Lamb!” You answer, “But must not I?” I am not surprised. It is no reproach I make; it is human nature — my nature in the flesh. Be assured that in “I” there is no good thing. But tell me, would you not be glad to have Him?
A. Surely I would.
B. Then your real question is not about accepting Him, but whether God has really presented Him to you, and eternal life in Him. A simple soul would say, Accept! I am only too thankful to have Him! But as all are not simple, one word on this also. If you have offended someone grievously, and a friend seeks to offer him satisfaction, who is to accept it?
A. Why, the offended person, of course.
B. Surely. And who was offended by your sins?
A. Why, God, of course.
B. And who must accept the satisfaction?
A. Why, God must.
B. That is it. Do you believe He has accepted it?
A. Undoubtedly I do.
B. God is satisfied, then, and are not you?
A. Oh! I see it now. Christ has done the whole work and God has accepted it, and there can be no more question as to my guilt or righteousness. He is my righteousness before God. It is wonderful! And yet so simple! But why did I not see it? How very stupid!
B. That is faith in Christ’s work — not our accepting it, gladly as we do, but believing God has accepted it. You have no need to be occupied as to your faith. The object is before your soul, seen by it — what God has revealed is known by seeing it thus by faith. You are assured of that, not of your own state. Just as you see the lamp before you and know it, not by knowing the state of your eye — you know the state of your eye by seeing it. Now you say, “How stupid I was!” It is ever so.
But allow me to ask, What were you looking for? Christ or holiness in yourself and a better state of soul?
A. Well, holiness and a better state of soul.
B. No wonder you did not see Christ then. Now this is what God calls submitting to God’s righteousness — finding a righteousness which is neither of nor in ourselves, but finding Christ before God and the proud will submitting to be saved by that which is not of nor in ourselves. It is Christ instead of self, instead of our place in the flesh. Had you obtained peace in the way you sought it, you would have been satisfied — with whom?
A. Well, with myself.
B. Just so. And what would that have been? Shutting out Christ, as it were, save as a help — shutting Him out as your righteousness and peace. And as an upright soul cannot be satisfied with itself, it remains without peace for years perhaps, though confiding in God’s love, till it does submit to God’s righteousness.
And now note another point, for the soul at peace with God can now contemplate Christ and learn. He has not only borne our sins and died to sin and closed the whole history of the old man in death for those who believe (they having been crucified with Him), but He has glorified God in this work (John 13:31-32; 17:4-531Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. (John 13:31‑32)
4I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 5And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. (John 17:4‑5)) and so obtained a place for us in the glory of God — a place of present acceptance, according to the nature and favor of God whom He has glorified, and that is our place before God. It is not only that the old man and his sins are all put out of God’s sight, but we are in Christ before God, and of this we have the consciousness by the Holy Spirit given to us (John 14:2020At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. (John 14:20)). Accepted in the Beloved, divine favor resting on us as on Him, and He dwelling in us. This leads on to true practical holiness. We are sanctified — set apart — to God by His blood; we have Him as our life, and He Himself becomes the measure of our walk and relationship with God. We are not our own but bought with a price, and nothing inconsistent with this, and its power in our hearts, becomes a Christian.
This was beautifully expressed in the Old Testament in figures. When a leper was cleansed, besides the sacrifice, the blood was put on the tip of his ear, his thumb and his great toe. Every thought, every act, all in our walk which cannot pass the test of that blood is excluded from the Christian’s conduct. And whatever grieves the Holy Spirit of God, by which we are sealed when thus sprinkled, is unsuited to a Christian, seeing He dwells in us. The love of Christ, shown in the shedding of His blood for us, becomes the motive and the Holy Spirit the power of devotedness to walk in love, as Christ walked. If we are in Christ, Christ is in us; we know it by the Comforter given (John 14), and we are the epistle of Christ in this world: The life of Jesus is to be manifested in our mortal body.
A. But your standard is very high.
B. It is what Scripture gives. “He that saith he abideth in Him ought . . . to walk, even as He walked.” God’s ways are set before us as the model, Christ being the expression of it. “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.” And there is no limit. “Hereby we have known love, because He has laid down His life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives.” “Now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.”
But, mark, there is nothing legal in this —nothing by which we are seeking to make our case good with God. Many would say that complete grace and assurance leave liberty to do as we like — that if we are completely saved, what are the motives or need of any works? It is a dreadful principle — as if we have no motive but “getting saved” — none but legal bondage and obligations, and if we are saved all motive is gone! Have the angels no motive? It is an utter mistake, such as we could not make in human things. What should we think of the sense of one who would tell us that a man’s children are exempt from obligation because they are certainly and always his children? I should say that they are always and certainly under obligation because they are always and certainly his children, and if they were not, the obligation would cease.
A. That is clear enough, though I never thought of it. But you do not mean that we were under no obligation before we were children of God?
B. I do not, but we were not under that obligation—you cannot be under the obligation of living as a Christian till you are one. We were under the obligation of living as men ought to live, as men in the flesh before God, and of this the law was the perfect measure. But upon that ground we were wholly lost, as we have seen. Now we, who through grace believe, are completely saved and are “children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” And our duties are the duties of God’s children. Duties and right affections always flow from the relationships we are in. The consciousness of the relationship is the spring and character of the duty — though our forgetting it does not alter the obligation. And so Scripture always speaks: “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies.” Right affections and duties flow from the place we are already in and are never the means of getting into it. We enjoy this place and relationship by walking in it — or, rather, we enjoy the light and favor of God’s communion in it.
But note: Failure in faithfulness does not lead to doubt the relationship, but to blame ourselves for inconsistency with it.
Here the advocacy of Christ comes in and other truths which I cannot enter into now, though most precious in their place. Only remark that Christ’s advocacy is not the means of our obtaining righteousness but is founded on the propitiation He made for our sins. Nor do we go to Him that He may advocate, but He goes to God for us because we have sinned. Christ had prayed for Peter before he had even committed the sin and just for what was needed, not that he might not be sifted (he needed that), but that his faith might not fail when he was sifted. Ah, if we knew how to trust Him! See how, in the midst of His enemies, He looked at Peter at the very right moment to reach his conscience and break his heart!
A. How simple things are when we take Scripture, and how it changes all our thoughts of God. One is altogether in a new state!
B. True indeed, and this leads to two other points I wish to call attention to. We have looked at Christ’s work as satisfying, yea, glorifying God; it has shown us how righteousness was to be had. But, remember, it was God’s sovereign love which gave Christ, and the same love led Him to offer Himself for us. It is sovereign grace, and in divine righteousness, as we have seen, which gives us a place in glory, according to the acceptance of Christ. It is sovereign grace which gives us a place with the Son of God and shall conform us to His image. Yet it is righteous, for His blood and work fully and necessarily claim such a place, as we have seen in John (ch. 13 and ch. 17). And now we “joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We know Him as love, and this love is the sum of all our joy and blessing; yet it is in righteousness, for we are made the righteousness of God in Him. We know God in love and are reconciled to Him. It is a blessed place — a place of holy affections and peaceful rest. We have communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. What is communion?
A. Why, common thoughts and joys and feelings.
B. Think of that — communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ!
A. That is wonderful. I hardly get into that.
B. Well, we have to seek that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, that, being rooted and grounded in love, we may comprehend. Yet, if the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, is the source of our thoughts and joys and feelings, they cannot be discordant with those of the Father and the Son, though we may be poor, feeble creatures. Does not the Christian’s heart delight in Christ — in His words, His obedience, His holiness, and His sacrifice of Himself to the Father’s will? And does not the Father delight in it? We, indeed, poorly and feebly; He infinitely, but the object is one. He is chosen of God and precious, and to them that believe He is precious. It is a matter for our daily life with diligence of heart. You can understand that what comes from the Holy Spirit must conform to the mind of the Father and the Son.
A. That is all so new to me — such a different world I am brought into! If this be true, where are we all?
B. I leave you to ponder over this and to search the Scriptures whether these things are so — whether Scripture (which fully recognizes our passing through exercises of soul as coming to it) ever looks at the Christian otherwise than as forgiven and accepted in the Beloved and knowing it, for we have “not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but . . . the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”
A. But there is a passage in which we are told to examine ourselves whether we are in the faith, and what you have said, it seems to me, sets this aside.
B. No; you misunderstand the passage. Many a sincere soul is honestly doing it, and we all pass naturally through it.
A. But it is there in Scripture.
B. The words are part of a sentence in 2 Corinthians 13:3,5. Leaving out the parenthesis, the sentence is this: “Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me . . . examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.” It is a taunt. The Corinthians had called in question whether Christ spoke to them through Paul and the reality of his apostleship, as you may see in both epistles. And he says, as a final argument, “You had better examine yourselves: How came you to be Christians?”—for he had been the means of their conversion. Hence he adds, “Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” He appeals to their certainty of being Christ’s to prove his apostleship — to their shame, but this is no direction to examine whether one is in the faith. It is all well to examine whether we are walking up to it, but that is a very different thing. A child does right to examine his conduct, as such; it would be sad work for it to examine if he were a child. The consciousness of a relationship is a different thing from consistency with it, and we must not confound the two. The loss of the consciousness of the relationship (which ever abides when once really possessed, unless in cases of divine discipline for sins) destroys the grounds of duty and the possibility of affections according to it. Look at the passage.
A. I see it plain enough now. There is nothing to complete the passage, “Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me,” if we do not connect this with it. The force of the apostle’s reasoning is clear. He appeals to their certainty: “Know ye not?”
B. I have yet one point I wish briefly to notice. In receiving Christ, we receive life. “This is the record,” says John, “that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life.” Between this “life” and “the flesh” there is no common thought. If we do not realize redemption, this new life received (not taking us from under law and the sense of our own responsibility) causes misery of heart at finding sin in us, as in Romans 7. If we do know redemption, still “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” — being contrary the one to the other. But if led of the Spirit, we are not under the law. Now what is redemption? You have been trying to draw hopeful conclusions from finding signs of life in yourself —having a general apprehension of the goodness of God, strengthened by the knowledge that Christ died — but all this reasoning about yourself is not faith’s apprehension of what redemption means. It left you still, though with better hope, in view of judgment. You were looking for proofs of life, concluding that if they were there, you could pass in the judgment, and then, perhaps in a vague way, you brought in Christ to make up what you lacked.
A. I think you have described my case pretty nearly.
B. Now when a person lives close with God in simplicity of heart, the sense of goodness in God predominates, and there is the savor of piety; otherwise there is uneasiness and restlessness, the accusing conscience predominates, and we are unhappy, if not dismally afraid. But in neither case is redemption really known. Faith has not yet apprehended that Christ has taken our place in judgment and given us His in glory, while we wait for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body. The way in which Scripture unites these two truths is in the resurrection of Christ, which is the seal of God’s acceptance of His work. He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father — bringing Him up fully out of the consequences of our sin into another state, and we with Him. We were dead in sins, exposed to judgment, and under death: Christ came down from heaven and by His death accomplished the work of putting our sins away. We have died with Him, and with Him are raised, consequent on the completed work and God’s acceptance of it. He has quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses. It is life in resurrection. It is deliverance out of the state we were in and our entrance into another — not yet outwardly, of course, yet really, by the possession of this life. Redemption means deliverance out of the state I was in and bringing me into another, a free one. Hence we talk of the redemption of the body, which we have not yet. Life does not by itself give this, but it makes us feel the burden of our old state. But when we find that we are redeemed also and have been brought out of the old Adam state into Christ, it gives us “boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:1717The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: (John 4:17)).
A. I cannot quite follow the course of Scripture thoughts you give, but I see the difference between redemption and life, and we have both in Christ now, since He has died and is risen. I suppose I had life before, but I have, in a measure, now understood redemption, too.
B. Yes, of course, you were redeemed. And God has wrought in you in grace, as you said, but you were looking at this, in view of the judgment, instead of an accomplished redemption. See how the Apostle applies this in Romans 5:1919For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Romans 5:19): “By the obedience of One [Christ] shall many be made righteous.” Then, says the flesh, I may live in sin. What is the answer? No, you ought not! This would be to put you back under the claims of the law. The Spirit’s argument is, How can you that are dead to sin live in it any longer? You have been baptized to Christ’s death and are a Christian by having part in His death. If you have died with Him to sin, how can you live in it any longer? You are now free to give yourself to God, as one who is alive from the dead.
A. Well, while the old foundations remain, it makes a new thing of the whole matter. It is not the way that Christianity is generally understood. I have to realize it, though I am quite different as to my ground of peace already — or, rather, I have one which I had not before. But I see it is in Scripture, and I must search that out.
B. The truth is that the great body even of true Christians hope it will be all right at the end. They hope to get in, instead of joying in a present access to God and being here as the epistle of Christ in the world.
A. But you would make us all out-and-out Christians — dead, as you say, to the world.
B. Surely; “a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” It is the single eye which causes the whole body to be full of light. We are not our own. The new man has his service here, but not his objects. So it was with Christ. We are crucified to the world and the world to us, and so we have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. Only remember that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, so that it needs vigilance, as to our passage through the wilderness, working out your salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:1212Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12)), not because your place is uncertain, but because God does work in you to will and to do (Phil. 2:1313For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)), and it is a sober thing to maintain God’s cause when the flesh is in us, and Satan disposes of the world to hinder and deceive us. But do not be discouraged, for God works in you: Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. You cannot be in wilderness difficulties unless you have been redeemed out of Egypt. “My grace is sufficient for thee,” says Christ; “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” “If God be for us, who can be against us?” The secret is lowliness of heart and the sense of dependence and looking with confidence to Christ who has saved us and called us with a holy calling. You cannot mistrust yourself, nor trust God, too much. By redemption you are brought to God, set in the place of His children, to make good His glory here. The true knowledge of redemption brings one in perfect peace, with true and constant dependence on the Redeemer. But if you have not the first, you cannot have the second, nor can you walk with God if you are not reconciled to Him.
A. This is true, and I do not want to make difficulties, but there is still a question I have to ask; I wish to get clear on these points. We have been taught to rely on God’s promises and trust them for our salvation; it is the language we constantly hear, and I do not see, if your view be right, how exactly to connect it with trusting in the promises for salvation, and surely we should do that.
B. The answer is very simple, and I am glad you put the question. Trusting God’s promises is clearly right, and there are precious promises. But tell me, Is it a promise that Christ shall come and die and rise again?
A. No; He is come and has died and is risen and is at God’s right hand.
B. This, then, cannot be a promise, because it is an accomplished fact. For Abraham it was a promise, and he did right to believe it as such. To us it is an accomplished fact, and we must believe it as such. So Scripture speaks. Abraham believed that what God had promised He was able also to perform. But we believe He has performed that which saves us. It would be unbelief to treat it as a promise. You will find this very point spoken of at the end of the fourth chapter of Romans. As to help on our Christian journey through this world, there are many and blessed promises: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” God “will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.” “They [His sheep] shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” “Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And I might cite many others of the greatest comfort and value to us in our difficulties on the way. But the work in which I have to believe, as justifying me and reconciling me to God, as alone and perfectly putting away my sins, is not a promise, but an accomplished fact — a work already accepted of God.
A. I see it clearly; indeed, nothing can be simpler and plainer. What justifies before God is not a promise at all, but an accomplished fact. I had never noticed that passage in Romans 4. How carelessly one reads Scripture! It is very plain, and the truth of what you say is evident.
B. As we have touched this point, allow me to draw your attention again to the passage in Romans 4. There, it is not “believe on Christ” — however true that is — but “believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.” So in Peter: “Who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory.” So the Lord Himself: “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me.” We only know God really as revealed in Christ. If I know Him thus, I know Him as God our Saviour — as One who has not spared His Son for me — as One who, when Christ was dead (as having taken our sins), raised Him from the dead. In a word, I not only believe in Christ, but in Him who has given Christ and owned His work — who has given glory to man in Him — as a God who has come to save, not as one who is waiting to judge me. I believe in Him as revealed in Christ. When Israel had passed the Red Sea, they believed in a God who had delivered them and brought them to Himself, and so do I. Thus Christianity gives us present affections, in a known relationship, in peace, and the energizing power of hope, for love is the spring of all. We love Him, because He first loved us, and, finding our joy in Him, love goes out to others, as partaking of His nature and Christ’s dwelling in our hearts, so that love constrains us.
A. You make a Christian a wonderful person in the world, but we are very weak for such a place.
B. I could never make him in my words what God has made him in His. As to weakness, the more we feel it the better. Christ’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.
Author’s Note: I have had some little hesitation in putting this in the form of a dialogue, as being fictitious, which I dislike in divine things, but it is a real summing up of many conversations, so that I have given it in this form, as presenting more clearly the common difficulties of a soul.