A Voice From The Past: That I May Gain Christ: Philippians 3

By J. N. Darby [1] [2]

This is an epistle that gives us the proper experience of the Christian, that is, the power of the Spirit of God working in him in his path; and consequently, we get the spirit and character in which a Christian should walk down here. In chapter 2 we see the graciousness of the spirit in which Christ walked. He always went down and humbled Himself, even down to the cross, and then God exalted Him as man to His right hand: even as Antichrist exalts himself, and is abased. Christ is the bright and perfect example of “He that humbles himself shall be exalted.” In chapter 3 you get the energy of the Spirit.

Now, we cannot have too distinctly and clearly before our souls the great basis of the completeness of redemption. In the first place, the putting away of sins and sin too—the putting away of all that the first Adam produces, and then our introduction into a totally new place—an entirely new standing—we have peace with God. Jesus, “was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 4:25–5:1). That is not all. Our peace is in Christ, and there is no possibility of condemnation for a person in Christ. We see the efficacy of the work of Christ, we get the certainty of sins put away, are sealed by the Holy Ghost; consequently we are only waiting for Christ to come and take us to glory. That is our place, and all our duties flow from the place we are in, even as in natural things. We are brought into Christ—made children of God, sons of God; then our duties flow from that place. “Therefore be followers of God as dear children” (Eph 5:1). Again, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6). Therefore, the first great thing is to know our place: not only that we are forgiven (though that is the first thing we need), not only that we are guilty, but the believer finds out a great deal more than that, he finds out that he is lost. Guilty brings in the thought of judgement; but if we are lost we do not think of judgement, because we are ruined already. I speak not only of what I have done, but where I am—outside Paradise, and totally ruined already. We are lost in our own condition. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Rom 8:18). So that I do not say merely that I am justified, but that I am saved, and in Christ. I do not believe we get into full liberty till we understand we are totally lost and saved—not only what we have done, but what we are.

It is important that the Christian should distinctly get hold of that, for it is what redemption means. As with Israel in Egypt, the blood upon the door-posts saved them from the judgement of God; but besides that, God took them out of Egypt, and put them into Canaan. We “are not in the flesh but in the Spirit” (Rom 8:9). It is a new condition and place altogether, and this is deliverance, not only forgiveness and justification, but deliverance; and, therefore, in Romans 7 it is not “How shall I get forgiveness?” but “who shall deliver me?” The answer is, “I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25). He finds his sins blotted out; defiled, he is washed; having offended, he is forgiven; guilty, he is justified; God has made that perfectly clear forever. But the old man is dead before God, and the new man is in Christ. Christ is my righteousness. I was lost, without hope in myself, but now I am in Christ before God. That is my deliverance. In Romans 5 you are justified; but in Romans 8 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (v 1). To find out, practically, that I am lost, is a very different thing from finding that I am guilty; because, if lost, I have finished my whole history, and I must get my whole condition made new (thank God it is, in Christ). If I am guilty, I may hope to get forgiveness; but if I am lost, I must get a new condition altogether—a totally new creation in Christ Jesus. When I have this redemption, the effect is to leave me, as a matter of fact, down here, being thus delivered, and then I begin to run the race; for you and I have in this world to go through the wilderness (to find ourselves in heavenly places too). God has minded that we should be thus exercised to discern good and evil, and what we get in this chapter is power in that course. We have to “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus” (Heb 12:1–2). It is the expression, in Philippians 3, of the experience of one who was running the race faithfully.

Sin is never mentioned in the epistle; what you find in Paul was, that the power of the Holy Ghost was there. It was not that the flesh was not there, for he had a thorn in the flesh, but there was power to keep it down. You get complete deliverance here, entire freedom, for he was running his race free; and another you see is power, Christ’s power. He was perfectly free, or he could not have run on in that power, and also (which is practically a great thing), he had an object, which gave him singleness of eye and purpose. You get the man set perfectly free: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). The principle of sin, in which I was lost, is dead and gone for faith, because Christ has died, and, therefore, I say I died: “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:11). The life that I have in Christ, and as to the flesh, I say, “I died upon the cross.” That is the place the apostle was then in, and there was power, because “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). There is Christ’s power. His grace is sufficient for us; therefore we can never excuse ourselves if we commit sin, because Christ’s grace is sufficient for us. His strength is made perfect in weakness. It is not that the flesh is not there; but a dead person does not act. We fail; but the Christian condition is, “You are dead.” If there is carelessness and want of prayer, failure does come; but there is no excuse for it. If Christ is in me, there is life and power, and the flesh is a dead thing. It is not that Christ has died for your sins, but you have died with Christ; that is where real freedom comes in, and power comes in too because Christ is there.

You will always find that where Christ’s power is in us, Christ is the object of our life, as in Galatians 2, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (v 20). And then he adds, “And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (v 20). There is the object: wherever Christ is the power of life in us, Christ is the object of that life. Christ having become a man, and gone into glory, God has given the object of our delight also, and given us His Spirit to enable us to make it so. It is a wonderful thing to see that God has so set Christ before us, and given us His Spirit, and a new nature, to be able to enjoy Him, linking us thus with himself.

The next thing is, “that I may gain Christ” (3:8). That is what he means by “That I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me,” (3:12), and now he says, “I want to possess Him.” He is not looking at the salvation wrought out by Christ, but at the end; and therefore he says, at the close of the chapter, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body” (3:20–21). It is the salvation we are expecting that he speaks of now.

We have the man freed, and with power; and we have the man with Christ as his object and nothing else: and there is where we all are, and it is just a question of our faith as to how far it is true of us practically. It all depends on how far Christ is our object. You have the graciousness of deportment in chapter 2. Here we get the active energy of the Spirit of God; and mark, it is where there is one single object that there is practical energy and power. “A double-minded man [is] unstable in all his ways” (Jas 1:7). In some things, he acts like a Christian; in others, he does not. If he has two or three objects, he is unstable, but if he has one object he walks with energy.

Now what characterised the apostle was that he had given up all things; not did “count them as rubbish” (Phil 3:8), but “do” now! Can we say that? At the moment of our conversion we all felt that all we had in the world had been deceiving us, and leading us to hell and its horrors. The pleasure, wealth, riches, ease, everything that was gain to us as men in the world, can we say of them, “I do count them but rubbish that I may gain Christ?” Paul was not satisfied with having counted, but he says, “I do count,” and further than this, “All this will only hinder me.” Like a man running a race, he has on a beautiful cloak, we will suppose; he finds it hinders him, and he throws it off.

It is the object we have that always characterises us—blest be God, we have it in Christ unto everlasting life. It was not any uncertainty with the apostle, it was not that he doubted that Christ had laid hold of him, but he wanted to get Christ. There was this honest purpose of heart—the man was free, he had Christ’s strength; and then there was this purpose of heart—spiritual energy and activity. There are two things which go together. The first, “that I may gain Christ,” and then our resurrection from the dead, that is, our own glory, which comes in as the second thing. First, “that I may gain Christ,” it was Christ Himself who possessed his heart; still he says, “if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:11).

Well, I can have but one thing as my object. If I am making tents, as Paul did, I shall do it well; it is our duty as Christians to be patient and gracious in meeting with hard men—wrong doers. You will find that everything is judged of entirely by the object a man has. If he wants to get a thing, he will spend his money without stint to get it—he estimates everything by his object. An avaricious man will say of a spendthrift, “ Did you ever see such a fool!” And the spendthrift will say of one fond of money, “he might as well have a stone, for his money is no good to him.” The moment I get Christ as my object everything else will be as dross and dung, and there will be no want of lowliness, because the nearer we get to Christ the less we think of ourselves. I want to know Him, and the Spirit of God is not grieved. The path of the just grows brighter and brighter until the perfect day. His heart is more capable of knowing Christ, and he knows him better—he is not thinking of self. It is a privilege held out to us that we shall be so perfect that we shall only think of the Lord, and in any measure as we are near Him now, we think of Him and not of ourselves. The Christian looks at himself as forgiven, as justified, but as perfect, and going to be like Christ and with Christ. He has a new place; he is in Christ; he has it by the Spirit in faith now, and he wants actually to possess it.

Now how far can our souls say we are actually delivered, not only forgiven, but delivered? I do not mean that if you are careless you will not slip into sin, but there is a positive deliverance; we are not in the flesh at all. The world is there, Satan is there, and I have to watch every moment to have Christ sufficiently before my mind. You will find that nine-tenths of the things that are temptations to us would be no temptations at all if we walked with Christ. See a mother who has heard that her child has met with an accident on the railway, and lies at the station suffering; how she hastens to the spot, and does not even think of the show and vanity in the shop windows she may have to pass. Another time she might linger there, but not now. If our souls are filled with Christ, as I said, nine-tenths of the things that are temptations to us we shall not think of at all. It is living as Christ—“By the words of Your lips, I have kept myself from the paths of the destroyer” (Ps 17:4). The great mass of the temptations we should escape altogether, because we should be thinking of something entirely different. God has called me up to be with Christ and like Christ, and now I am after that, and am looking for nothing else. We all have some object that we follow with energy and life, and can we say that it is Christ, and that that is the one thing that governs our hearts from day to day?

The Lord give us beloved, to know what that true liberty is; “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty”(2 Cor 3:17)—liberty with God and from the things around: though we still have to contend, and shall have, too, yet it is with the joy of Christ in our hearts as we go on. God has called us in sovereign grace to be with Himself, like and with Christ forever, and where the soul is full of the Holy Ghost, there is joy and sustained freshness.

Notes

1. This article is excerpted from Notes of an Address. Helps in Things Concerning Himself, Vol. 2, 1892, pp 14–24. Scripture text has been changed from the KJV to the NKJV for ease in reading.
2. John Nelson Darby (1800–1882) was a nineteenth century protagonist for grace who gained a reputation for controversy for taking a stand against the politics of his own church (he was originally a priest in the Church of Ireland). He was a remarkable linguist, outstanding in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, German, Dutch, and Italian, and competent in Spanish. Darby had a strong influence on the American Bible Conference movement, the Scofield Reference Bible, and fundamentalism.

A Voice from the Past: Life Received

By James H. Brookes [1]

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:14–18).

Truly these are great and precious words, surpassing far in value all the words of all the philosophers and poets and statesmen who have ever lived. They assure the troubled sinner, if like Nicodemus he is perplexed by the doctrine of the new birth, that his difficulties may come to a speedy end. He that hath everlasting life enters of course into the kingdom of God; but he that believeth hath everlasting life; therefore he that believeth enters into the kingdom of God, and hence he that believeth is born again, or born from above. The inquirer, then, need not harass his mind with questions about regeneration, but turn his thoughts singly and entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ. When Moses at God’s command lifted up the serpent of brass in the wilderness, God’s promise was, “that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live” (Num 21:8). The bitten Israelites were not told to look upon the wounds made by the fiery serpents, nor to look upon Moses, the representative of the law, nor to reason about the connection between looking and living, but to look upon the uplifted serpent, made in the likeness of that which had inflicted the deadly stroke, even as God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. If they looked, they showed that they believed God’s word and trusted God’s promise.

“Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Jesus had just exclaimed, “You must be born again,” and now He adds, “Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The one must makes the other must a necessity, and both are necessary to regeneration, or the reception of eternal life. But, blessed be His name forever and ever, although He purchased salvation at such an immense cost to Himself, to us it is absolutely free, “without money and without price” (Isa 55:1). The way by which it is received is so simple, so easy, so nigh at hand, the believer wonders his heart does not break with penitence and love, every time it is presented to his mind. There may have been many an idiot in the widely extended encampment of the Israelites, struck by the fangs of the fiery serpents, but if he had sense enough to look, he lived. There may have been many a little child, moaning in its mother’s lap from the poisonous bite, but if it was old enough to follow the mother’s glance, to notice the mother’s pointed finger, to heed the mother’s voice bidding it look, it lived. To this day it is only, Look and live; Believe and live; for it is a sweet truth we are accustomed to sing in the sweet hymn—

“There is life for a look at the crucified One;
There is life at this moment for thee;
Then, look, sinner, look unto Him, and be saved,
Unto Him who was nailed to the tree.”

Matt, the idiot boy, on the coast of England had learned enough to know that he owed a debt to God which he could not pay, and he was weeping for fear God would shut him up in prison. A Christian lady took his trembling hand in hers and gently said, “No, Matt, you need not be shut up in prison, for Jesus has paid your debt.” Down into his darkened mind glanced the soft light of the gospel, and when he saw the wondrous truth that Jesus died on the cross in his stead, he lifted his streaming eyes to heaven with the joyful cry, “Man that paid, Matt says, Thank you, thank you.” Then and there he was born again; then and there he received eternal life, for he had looked upon the Son of Man lifted up; and if he had possessed sufficient intelligence he might have walked down the beach, singing in the gladness of exulting faith—

“Jesus paid it all;
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain;
He washed it white as snow.”

But these mighty words of Jesus tell us why the Son of Man was lifted up: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It is a mistake to suppose that Christ came down from heaven in order that God might love us; He came down because God did love us, and so love us, with a love so deep, so amazing, so unchangeable, so unutterable, He “did not spare His own Son” (Rom 8:32) the shame and humiliation and rejection and agony, that attended upon every step of His lonely and sorrowful path from the manger of Bethlehem to the cross of Calvary. It is needless to add that “Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma” (Eph 5:2). His too was a love most ardent, self-sacrificing, boundless, eternal, and “which passes knowledge” (Eph 3:19). The redemption of poor sinners was more to Him than the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, for He emptied Himself of it; more to Him than the joys of heaven, for He left them all; more to Him than life, for He says, “I lay it down of Myself” (John 10:18); more to Him than the shining of God’s countenance, for when God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21), He willingly leaped into the awful abyss of wrath and gloom, out of which arose such a wail of distress as never shook the earth before, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46).

The offering and the sacrifice thus presented on the cross, God has accepted as a sweet smelling saviour, and the proof of its acceptance is furnished to angels, men and devils, in the fact that God has raised Him from the dead. Nothing can be added to the efficacy of that atoning sacrifice; nothing can be added to the completeness of that finished work; nothing can be added to the value of that precious blood. Any attempt to add something of our own, in the way of feelings, repentance, good resolutions, charitable deeds, or ecclesiastical ordinances, that salvation may be rendered more certain and secure, is an insult to God, a dishonour to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a grief to the Holy Spirit. “Can you tell me,” said an unhappy skeptic to a happy old saint, “just what is the gospel you believe, and how you believe it?” She quietly replied, “God is satisfied with the work of His Son—this is the gospel I believe; and I am satisfied with it—this is how I believe it.” Said another lady to another unhappy man, “There is a great difference between your religion and mine; yours consists of two letters, D-O, and mine consists of four, D-O-N-E.”

In the nature of the case, since the work which Christ accomplished to bring life to dead souls, is finished, life can be received only by accepting it, by believing in Christ, by trusting in Christ, by coming to Christ, which all mean one and the same thing. Hence when the religious Jews asked Him the question, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said unto them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life” (John 6:28–29, 47). Hence too His tender and comforting invitation to those who are toiling to be saved, and are burdened with cares and fears and troubles, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). If any imagine that He will not receive them in all their labour, and with all their load of sin, let them think of the woman, “which was a sinner,” who fell at His feet without a prayer, without a word, to whom He said, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace” (Luke 7:50).

So it was always when the Lord Jesus was here on the earth. He never refused healing nor salvation to any who believed in His power and willingness to restore health or to forgive sin. He never turned any away disappointed, no matter who they were. There were many who thought themselves too good for Him, and with these He had nothing to do except to rebuke their pride, and self-righteousness, and fatal delusion; but oh, how gracious He was to all who came to Him as needy and sinful. “The Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them’” (Luke 15:2); and He proceeded to vindicate His reception of them, simply and only on the ground of the joy it gave Him to seek the lost, and to bestow life upon the dead. “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), was His word of defense; and trust in His love found a way at once to His bosom, and to the infinite resources of His power. It might be a wasted finger reaching no further than the hem of His garment, as when the poor sick woman came timidly through the crowd, after she had suffered many things of many physicians for twelve wearisome years, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse; yet the feeblest touch of faith thrilled His heart, and immediately brought forth the assurance, “Daughter, your faith has made you well” (Mark 5:34).

So it is still, for look where we will throughout the New Testament, the salvation of men is made to turn upon their faith in Jesus Christ. Peter was preaching to the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household, and having told the story of the death and resurrection of the Son of God, he said, “‘To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him shall receive remission of sins.’ While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the word” (Acts 10:43–44), showing that it was testimony which the Spirit of life approves. Paul was preaching to the Jews, and, having told the story of the death and resurrection of the Son of God, he said, “by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:39). Paul and Silas were preaching to the Philippian jailor at midnight, who cried out in his distress, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:30, 31).

Precisely the same testimony is found all through the inspired Epistles. “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). “Whom God set forth to be a propitiation by His blood…that He might be just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.…Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (Rom 3:25–28). “To him who does not work, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (Rom 4:5). “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, ‘The man who does those things shall live by them.’ But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?”‘ (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:4–9).

These texts are taken from a single Epistle, and it may show the prominence attached to the truth that life is received through faith alone, when it is stated that the words translated believe, believing, and faith, occur about five hundred and sixty times in the New Testament. It is not faith and something beside, it is faith by itself which receives life, as it is written, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26); “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1); “For 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); “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (Gal 2:16).

The sinner who wants to be saved is not asked to lift his hand, to move a foot, to wait a moment, to be saved, but just as he is, with all his sins upon him, and his hard and unhappy heart within him, he is permitted, and implored, and commanded to believe that Christ is able and willing to save him, and that God for Christ’s sake will pardon him straightway; for “this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 3:23). Nothing can be gained by delay, for sooner or later, the troubled inquirer must take God at His word, and, without the least shred of righteousness of his own, trust in Christ to give him everlasting life. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Since the death of Christ on the cross, since He suffered the penalty of sin, since He met the demands of God’s law, since He paid our debt to the last farthing, it is no longer the sin question but the Son question with a lost world. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” There is no sin so dark and deep the precious blood of Jesus cannot wash it away; and the chief of sinners who believes ought to be as sure that all of his sins are blotted out, as if he had been guilty of none, and that he too may say with other blood washed sinners in the confidence of a simple and unquestioning faith, “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

Listen to His loving assurance, which sounds out in His word, as if the very tones of His voice could be heard, as if He stood personally and visibly revealed in the presence of the troubled soul, as if the kindly glance of His eye were piercing the gloom and the sorrow, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life” (John 6:47).

This article is excerpted from Chapter V of From Death Unto Life (Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Association, n.d.), 55–66. Scripture text has been changed from the KJV to NKJV for ease in reading.

Notes

1. James H. Brookes, D. D. (1830–1897) was pastor of Washington Avenue Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri. The Brookes Bible Institute of St. Louis was named in his honor. Dr. Brookes was a prolific writer, having authored more than 200 booklets and tracts. He was the editor of The Truth, and was a well-known Bible teacher. One of his very influential students was C. I. Scofield, editor of the popular Scofield Reference Bible (1909, 1917, revised as the New Scofield Reference Bible 1967). Brookes was also a key leader in the famous prophetic conferences of 1878 and 1886.

A Voice from the Past: Discovering The Gospel

By Lance B. Latham (1894-1985) [1]

I. Introduction

There is something within the heart of a man which constantly presses to make a perverse addition to the sole basis of our salvation, the work of Christ on the cross. Constantly pressed by the sin of pride, the mind of the natural man is ever reluctant to admit its sinful, helpless condition.

Many who understand the gospel refuse to come to Christ because they will not admit that they lack a shred of goodness, righteousness or desirability within themselves that God can accept.

Religious leaders try to add baptism, church membership, faithful living, personal sacrifice or some other human work to the work of Christ to the hope of salvation for the believer. Such philosophies may have filled the coffers of religion but have confused the issue of salvation and thus damaged countless souls.

One who discovers the gospel will instantly realize that the sole basis of his salvation is the work of Christ on Calvary’s cross. Saving faith depends alone on the value of Calvary. All other possible sources for the assurance of salvation are counterfeit.

II. Invitations to the Unsaved

The gospel is the good news. It is not a new set of obligations or duties to be performed—new strivings—more agonizings—but rather an announcement of what has been done for us. We do not present the claims of the gospel. We present a wonderful free offer by God Himself to the sinner who believes.

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19).

We find the fearful need for salvation in Rom 1:18 through 3:20. The Lord came “not to call the righteous, but sinners.” For unless the person seeking salvation realizes his desperate need, he will not flee “for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb 6:18).

Then there follows the need of a scriptural invitation. A great passage in Rom 3:18 through 4:8 has often been called the core of Romans and of the entire Bible—this is the one place in the Bible where the way of justification is set forth and explained (it is defended in Galatians). And there are many instances of salvation in the Gospels and the book of Acts.

Let us look closely at a few of the “invitations” listed at the beginning of this chapter. [2]

A. “Give Your Heart to Christ”

As William Reid so well says in his Blood of Jesus, “‘Give your heart to Jesus’ is law rather than gospel.” [3] Salvation is not my gift to God, but His gift to me. This also applies to like invitations such as, “Give your life to God,” “Give your heart to Christ,” “Surrender all,” “Put your all on the altar,” and “Ask Jesus to come into your heart.”

On what Scripture does this invitation rest? We find in Prov 23:26, “My son, give me thine heart.” Surely there is no justification for an invitation so generally given in this one verse! It is addressed to “my son,” an already established relationship, with no reliance on Calvary.

B. “Forsaking All Your Sins”

This means that the sinner must promise to live perfectly from now on. I read in Rom 8:7:

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

God accepts us as ungodly, as we are, when as sinners, we trust in Him and His redeeming work on Calvary. Then, once we are justified, “He shall save His people, from their sins.”

C. “God Be Merciful to Me a Sinner”

This is commonly used in rescue missions, and doubtless God saves many, in spite of such an incomplete invitation. And do you notice what usually is added, “And save me for Jesus’ sake.” We quote the faithful note in the Scofield Bible regarding Luke 18:13:

Greek hilaskomai, used in the Septuagint and N.T. in connection with the mercy-seat. As an instructed Jew the publican is thinking, not of mere mercy, but of the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat. His prayer might be paraphrased, “Be toward me as thou art when thou lookest upon the atoning blood.” The Bible knows nothing of divine forgiveness apart from sacrifice.

D. “Surrender All”

William R. Newell teaches us, “to preach full surrender to an unsaved man as the way of salvation will just make a hateful Pharisee out of him.” [4] And, from Dr. Ironside’s tract, “Another Gospel”:

When anyone comes promising salvation to those “who make full surrender” of all that they have to God, and who “pay the price of full salvation” he is preaching another gospel, for the price was paid on Calvary’s cross and the work that saves is finished. It was Christ Jesus who made the full surrender when He yielded His life on Calvary that saves us, not our surrender in any way to Him. [5]

The great conclusion of Rom 3:19–28 is, “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.” Apart from our living! The matter of my continuing in sin is not brought up until Romans 6, after the matter of my justification is well settled. I am justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, as stated in Rom 3:25, “through faith in His blood.”

E. “Believe in Jesus”

Ask any Roman Catholic, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” and he will answer, “Of course.” Is this man therefore saved? The real question is, “Where is your hope?” Are you depending upon Christ and what He has done at Calvary alone, or is your hope in penances performed, masses, baptism and so forth? This is not faith in Christ and His work; this is faith in your own works, faithfulness to church, and therefore cannot save!

Hebrews 6:18 describes people with saving faith as those “who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.”

The climactic exhortation in Rom 12:1: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice” is addressed to believers, those already saved. The basis for that appeal is “the mercies of God,” the wonderful possessions we have in Christ presented in the previous chapters of Romans. Having this apply to unbelievers getting saved robs God of the great victory that grace, and grace alone can win.

F. “Make Jesus Your Lord”

This is just another variation of the “surrender all” invitation. Surely we must recognize who He is, or we will die in our sins (John 8:24). But this is vastly different from making Him your Lord in your life, in other words, promising to obey the rest of your life. This latter is preaching “works.” His mercies, with all His graciousness to us, will lead us to making Him Lord, and that out of a heart of love and appreciation of Him.

We feel that those who propose this way of salvation change the obvious meaning of Rom 10:9 to justify this:

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

This cannot be made to say, “make Him Lord of your life.”

This article is taken from a chapter by the same name from The Two Gospels (Rolling Meadows, IL: Awana, 1984), 43–47.

Notes

1. Lance (Doc) Latham was founding pastor of North Side Gospel Center in Chicago. He was a gifted musician, dedicated student of the Bible, and instrumental in the founding of New Tribes Mission. Lance served for 35 years as President of Awana, helping to grow the fledgling ministry into a worldwide outreach to children.
2. A complete list of invitations listed on p. 41 include “Give your heart to Christ,” “Give your heart to Jesus,” “Surrender all,” “Pray the penitent’s prayer,” “Turn the direction of your life over to God,” “Put your all on the altar,” “Make Jesus Lord of your life,” “Confess all your sins,” “Forsake all your sins,” “Take Jesus into your heart,” “Ask Jesus to come into your heart,” “Make the great commitment,” and “Follow Jesus.”.
3. William Reid, Blood of Jesus (np: Liberty Bell Press, 1969).
4. Ed. note: There was no bibliographic information given in the article for this work.
5. Ed. note: We were unable to obtain bibliographic information for this tract.

A Voice from the Past: Salvation By Grace

By J. Irvin Overholtzer [1] [2]

Editor’s Note: This is a delightful testimony of how God revealed His grace to a modern-day Pharisee. Overholtzer’s humility and love for the Free Grace gospel is evident again and again in this article. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

I. Introduction

Salvation is a free gift. Oh, sinner, believe it! Salvation is free! Oh, believer, proclaim it! We are saved by grace, and rewarded for service. I know it is too good to be true, and yet it is gloriously true, as true as the infallible Word of God (Rom 6:23; Eph 2:8–9).

A deacon in the church, a church member for twenty-two years, sent for me to come to see him. This was in the country and he took me way out behind the barn, out of hearing of every one. I wondered what was coming. He was about to tell me that he was not saved. Is it any wonder that he wanted to be where none of his family would hear such a confession? Can you understand the agony of soul and the courage required for him to make this acknowledgment?

This is what he said, “My daughter has something that I do not have, and I want to know how to get it.” I soon found that through all the years he had been working to get himself saved. He had accepted Christ only as one of those necessary good works. Never had he seen that salvation was a free gift.

When I had shown him, by the Word of God, that salvation could be had instantly by a single, simple act of faith, he said, “If I could believe that I would be the happiest man in Glenn County.” But he could not believe it. However, a ray of light had entered his works-darkened soul, and he was now willing to let others know that he was a “seeker” for salvation, though a deacon.

I called his daughter and asked her to tell her father how she had come into possession of that which he had seen in her. She gave a simple testimony of how she had realized that she was a sinner and that Jesus had died on the cross for her. That she had simply accepted Him as her Savior and that He had saved her. The father listened eagerly but said, “It is too good to be true.” I could not convince him, and as it was growing late I had to leave him.

The next day I met him again and even before he spoke his shining face proclaimed the good news. Sometime in the night he had come to believe the blessed Gospel, and his soul had been flooded with the joy of salvation, and he was one of the happiest men in the county. I said one, for I was in that county too.

What this man had needed for more than twenty years was someone to teach him in all simplicity the blessed Gospel of grace. Oh, why had it not been done! [3]

II. An Unbelieving World

Paul faced a world that did not believe his message, very much the same kind of a world that we face, yet he had the only Gospel that could save them in time or in eternity. Oh, yes, they believed in a god, for few people have lived who did not believe in a god, but they did not believe in the true God whose “only-begotten Son” (John 3:16) was the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth. Did he compromise with these unbelievers? He did not. He could not and be true to them or to God.

They also believed in sin and in salvation. Few have lived who have not believed that sin was real and that they were sinners; but the world has always believed, or professed to believe, either that death would end all and thus prove their savior, or that by some scheme of good works God would be satisfied, or that perfection could be attained.

All of this Paul denied as Christ had done before him. He taught that salvation was alone in Christ the Son of God who died on the cross as a substitute for sinners (Acts 4:12). He taught that Christ having died did no one any good unless they knew what He had done for them and then believed on Him (Rom 10:13–14). But he was just as emphatic that even belief in Christ would avail nothing unless the person believing came to Christ on the ground of grace (Gal 2:16). That is to say that he must renounce all trust and dependence in good works, and in any and all other means of salvation, and trust in the finished work of Jesus as Sin-bearer only, as the ground of getting right with God and obtaining forgiveness of sin.

III. The Galatian Error

No sooner had this glorious Gospel been declared and believed by many, to their inexpressible joy, than Jewish teachers appeared on the scene and began to corrupt the message of grace. They said it was proper and right to believe in Christ—even to believe in Him as the God-man, Sin-bearer; but this alone would not save, that certain ordinances must be observed, that certain commandments must be obeyed, in addition to believing, or one would not be saved, or at least keep saved. Paul wrote the Galatian letter to refute this fundamental error. Here he stated with burning emphasis that such a corruption of the Gospel left no gospel at all and instead of bringing the salvation of God, only brought the curse of God upon those who taught these things (Gal 1:6–9).

This terrible corrupting of the Gospel of grace has been ever with us since that time. It has taken many forms. We have added many things to simple faith as the condition of salvation. We have demanded that all sin be forsaken as a condition of salvation. This is not the Gospel of grace at all. Sin is to be forsaken after Christ receives us and gives us His power with which to forsake the sin. We have demanded that a promise to obey Christ as Lord must be made—that we give our hearts to Him. This is not grace. Grace presents salvation to helpless sinners as a free gift (Rom 6:23; Eph 2:8). If promises are to be exacted, the salvation obtained would be anything but a gift (Rom 4:4–5). But the tragedy is, no salvation at all would be had. We have demanded that a certain creed be subscribed to. All of these are but forms of the Galatian error. They are under the condemnation of God.

Again a certain amount of sorrow for sin, or a certain kind of sorrow, has been demanded. We have required a public confession of Christ as a condition of justification. This, Christ and the apostles never did. Confession of Christ should follow and not precede faith in Christ. The salvation mentioned in Romans 10:9 and 10 refers to something beyond justification, as the context shows.

In the Galatian church those who accepted these errors lost their “blessing,” even if they were already saved, which left them without the Holy Spirit’s witness and guidance. This has always been true where any form of salvation by works has been accepted. This explains the loss of spiritual blessing in many a Christian life. Teachers who teach any form of salvation by works cannot have the blessing of God upon them, for they are really leading people away from salvation instead of to the only Savior who can save.

IV. Sixteen Years in Error

I spent about sixteen years in the Galatian error, and can testify to the loss of the Holy Spirit’s witness and blessing during those years. At twenty years of age I came to Christ. I had been a great sinner, and while I knew but little of the plan of salvation, I knew that Christ alone was the Savior and that I was so sinful that anything I had done or could do could not count toward my salvation. I threw myself on God’s mercy, in Christ, and instantly received peace, and as soon as I had publicly confessed Christ I received a gracious witness and blessing of the Holy Spirit. This brought me great joy and freedom in witnessing for Christ. This happy experience was short-lived.

Soon temptation came and sometimes I yielded, never deliberately, but through weakness and not knowing how to obtain victory. These sins I confessed to God and sought His forgiveness, but gradually Satan tempted me to question whether a sinning Christian was still saved. I began doubting my salvation, for I was now looking to my conduct instead of to the merits of Christ. This grieved the Holy Spirit and I soon lost His witness, not to return for sixteen long weary years.

Then in addition to falling into sin, as I studied the Bible, I found that there were many commandments to keep and many duties for a Christian to perform. Was a person really saved unless all these commandments were being kept? Was I saved unless all the requirements of duty were met? Then it was sometimes hard to know what the requirements of duty were, so how could I be sure I was doing right? And if not doing right was I still saved? You see I had turned away from grace, unconsciously, but nevertheless really, and was now depending on my works, my conduct, and my commandment keeping, as the ground of my acceptance with God. I still believed Christ died for me but my justification depended on more than my simple faith in Him as my Savior.

V. The Bondage of Works

When I had lost the witness of the Holy Spirit, how miserable I was! But instead of casting myself on God’s mercy in Christ again I thought my conduct was not pure enough and that He was grieved because of that. Perhaps I was not obeying His commandments sufficiently well. Perhaps He wanted me to make greater sacrifice in Christian service. I became more and more strict in every way, hoping to get back my joy. I began preparing for the ministry, longing through service to regain His favor. I volunteered as a missionary to a foreign field. I did everything that suggested itself, or that others suggested, to bring my life to the place where I would be good enough to claim salvation. The years were passing, with my soul oh, so hungry. I was now preaching—in the pastorate—doing some evangelistic work—preaching a gospel of works. Few responded to my message and these gave but little evidence of being born again. They had come to Christ on the ground of works. They were told that they must do other things in addition to simply believing if they would be saved. They believed the preacher and failed to find Christ!

I worked on and on, harder and harder; now so strict that in my zeal I found myself differing with almost everyone on questions of conduct and of doctrine. By this time I had a family of children and was so strict with them that they well-nigh lost their love for me; all to get salvation, to keep it, or to regain it, but still no blessing. There was no blessing in any department of my life. No blessing in my business and no blessing in my prayer life. My prayers seemed to get no higher than the ceiling: there were no answers. Oh! The agony of soul. I would have given my right arm to know that I was saved, to get my blessing back.

VI. A Pharisee and His Bible

I had become a Pharisee, having stumbled at the stone over which they stumbled (Rom 9:32). I was trying to provide a righteousness of my own instead of taking, by faith, the one God had provided (Rom 3:22). I knew my Bible in those days, could quote a great deal of it, but the texts that stressed works were my favorites. I did not know what to do with the ones that mention grace. They had no place in my thinking—in my theology. Had I been asked to define the word grace I could not have done it. It had never caught my attention. One of my favorite texts was, “Work out your own salvation”; never realizing that the next verse taught that God had already worked that salvation in me and I was only to work out what He had worked in (Phil 2:12–13).

The book of James was my favorite book of the New Testament and the second chapter the big chapter. Little did I understand that while James referred to the life of Abraham to prove salvation by works, he was talking of salvation in the sight of men, while Paul in Romans 4 taught that salvation in the sight of God was by faith alone without any works, and he also used Abraham as an illustration. Here is perfect agreement. James believed in grace as much as Paul. He was not discussing how we get salvation, but how we show it—show it to men. Of course, we show that we are saved by our works, for men cannot see our faith, but God can, and He saves us on the basis of the faith He sees.

My pursuit of a righteousness on the basis of my own conduct was fast leading me to despair, for if after sixteen years of earnest effort I was not saved, was there any reasonable prospect that I ever would be? Then what message did I have for others who wanted salvation? The best I had to offer them was an opportunity to yield to Christ in obedience, and start to working for their salvation as I was doing.

I believed, of course, that God forgave my sins from time to time, but was I ever free from sin when I was not perfect, and what if I should die in such a state? I feared death. I longed to have the witness of the Holy Spirit again. I was not in the position of those who fall into the error of salvation by works before they get to Christ for salvation, for they have never tasted of the bliss of the Holy Spirit’s witness, and do not know what it is, and what they are missing; but I once had enjoyed this blessing and it was agony to live without it.

Little by little I came to the place where I was willing to be taught. I wanted God to bring me to the truth, no matter how, or by whom. When this place was reached God could give me light, which He had longed to do through the years. It is wonderful to look back and see how wonderfully He worked.

VII. God Seeking a Wanderer

The first clear ray of light came through reading the life of D. L. Moody. I saw that he had something which I did not have—the Holy Spirit’s presence and blessing his life and ministry. But it is very wonderful how I came to read the life of Moody. I had, of course, heard of his great meetings, but in my pharisaical bigotry I had refused to become interested in his work, for since he failed to obey some of the commandments of Jesus which I held so essential he could not possibly have God’s blessing upon him. I admitted that he had power, whether through natural ability or from Satan I did not know, but I felt sure it was not from God.

One day I was passing the express office in the town where I held my pastorate and out of curiosity I stopped a moment while some unclaimed packages were auctioned off, among them a bundle of books. For these I bid twenty-five cents, not really wanting them, and little expecting to get them. To my surprise I found I had made a purchase. When I took them home I found among them a life of Moody, and while I did not at first read it, I could not get rid of the desire to do so in spite of my deep-seated prejudice. After reading it my unhappiness increased more and more, but it was a long time before I was willing to investigate the questions which it raised, though I could not get away from the conviction that here lay a possible solution to my problem.

VIII. God Using the Weak Things

The next thing that influenced me greatly was the life of a little girl, perhaps thirteen years of age. She had been raised in the Salvation Army and had been saved at a very early age. She joined the Sunday School class of which I was the teacher. She knew the Lord in the most real and precious fellowship, yet lived without any thought of making a show of the Holy Spirit’s blessing in her life. Had she been an adult my prejudice might have found some explanation of her seeming blessing from God, for I could not believe her a Christian because in those days I thought no one could be saved until they were properly baptized, and she had never been baptized at all. Yet she was a constant rebuke to my theology and to my Christian life, for I could see that she was a better Christian than I was.

About this time an elderly man moved into the neighborhood. Before his conversion he had been a terrible drunkard and after he was saved he gave up drink instantly, but either the use of liquor, or giving it up, had affected his mind so that he became to some extent simple-minded. In spite of this he was very clear on salvation by grace and enjoyed the great blessing of the Holy Spirit’s presence.

God used him to bring me the message which I needed and in a sense longed for. Had the Lord sent someone mentally capable I think I would have argued with him and received no help. On two different occasions this man came to my home, delivered me a little sermon of about a minute’s length, turned on his heel and was gone before I could answer him. Each time the message was just what I needed to convict and enlighten me. The gist of his two “sermons” was, salvation can be received instantaneously. He told me long afterward, when I had gotten my blessing back, that God sent him to me both of those times and revealed to him what he should say.

IX. Too Busy to Find the Truth

By this time I was really eager to know the truth at any cost. It seemed clear to me that the wise course was to restudy my Bible, asking God in simple faith to give me the light, with a determination to follow it even though the heavens fell. But my program was so full that I did not see any possible way of finding so much time as I knew this would require. Just then my family was quarantined for scarlet fever. Only one of the children was very ill but by taking their turns the quarantine was prolonged for thirteen weeks. This gave me the opportunity. How I improved it! I studied my Bible almost night and day. I soon discovered the word grace. I next made a list of the texts which taught that we were saved alone by believing. At first it seemed that these could not possibly mean that a sinner could be instantaneously saved by a simple act of faith without any added or preceding good works or reformation of conduct. But the more I studied them the more the Holy Spirit convicted me that this was the truth. I committed them to memory and set over against them the texts which I had been taught imposed works as a condition of getting salvation, and of keeping it as well. One by one these texts were illumined by the Holy Spirit until I saw that they referred to rewards, etc.

X. Counting the Cost

Now I stood at the parting of the ways. I was at last convinced with my head that salvation was secured alone by believing. Here another great problem arose. If I should accept this truth, I was now sure I would regain my lost blessing; but how could I face my people and tell them I had been teaching them error all the years. I was afraid my church would repudiate me and I would be case adrift with a large family and little means and no friends. It was a terrible struggle lasting for days—yes, and nights. At last the ground was all canvassed. I would follow the truth and trust God. The moment arrived when I yielded my will and gave up my old belief in works and accepted salvation by faith alone. Having memorized all of the texts that taught salvation by believing, I repeated them to myself many, many times. At last I said to myself, “It must be true” (that salvation is just through believing). Finally I said, “It is true.” At that moment I had the peace of God. My soul was flooded with the Holy Spirit’s witness. I was too happy for words. This had all happened in secret. Even my own family did not know of the struggle through which I had been passing. Now came the cross of telling it. It was a cross to tell my family, my people; but what a joyous cross it proved to be. Oh, the blessing that came to myself and others in the telling!

XI. A New Gospel Brings a New Ministry

I had taken up my cross, and sometimes the road was thorny, but the joy-bells were ringing in my heart. I knew I was saved! I had the witness of the Holy Spirit constantly. The blessing of God was upon my ministry. Opposition resulted only in new opportunities for God to manifest His presence and blessing. He blessing was upon my preaching. I now had a Gospel—Good News—to preach. I now had a testimony to give. In private and in public it was a delight to explain the way of salvation, and many were eager to hear. Soon I had my first convert and he has endured through the years, with the grace of God in evidence in his life. Soon there was another, then another, and another—all young men. What a joy it has been to follow these first four and to see the Gospel of grace prove itself true in experience.

Sometimes the old processes of thought would recur for a brief time. Usually this was brought about by coming in contact with men, often preachers, much more able than myself in every way, who taught works in one or the other of its subtle forms. It seemed there were few Christians whom I knew who were trusting alone in the finished work of Christ for justification. But these few showed in their very countenances that the Lord was with them. On these occasions of doubt there was but one recourse. I would turn to the Word again and reread the many texts which teach clearly that salvation is a gift received simply by believing. Soon the fog would lift and my joy would return. [4]

XII. Salvation By Simple Faith in Christ Crucified for Us

Salvation is free. Jesus died for me, and if I will admit my guilt, and have a willingness to be saved, and accept Him, He will give me the full benefit of His death on the cross as a free gift. I need not wait to reform. I need not promise anything in return. If I did, it would not be a free gift. I simply accept, and immediately I am forgiven, and I pass from death unto life.

XIII. The Place of Service in the Plan of Salvation

When I was “facing out” salvation by grace it seemed too good to be true that God would save me without waiting for me to quit my sins, or before I had rendered any service. Then again I thought this would encourage laxity of living. Many have raised this same objection since. But in my experience it worked just the reverse. When I really knew that I was saved and that God was good enough to save me instantly and without any merit on my part, I was overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude that has never left me. It had seemed to me utterly unthinkable that I should not do my utmost to obey the Christ who has set me free. I soon found that the measure of service I had rendered before was not now enough even to satisfy my own grateful soul.

Then the Holy Spirit had become a real and abiding “Presence,” and He taught me new concepts of service. I am sure that the soul who is saved by grace and continues to trust in the finished work of Christ alone, and then does not grieve the Holy Spirit, or disregard His promptings, will serve and serve and serve. The Holy Spirit soon taught me that all my prior service had been superficial. I had never given my life to God in full once-for-all consecration, that He might take it and plan it in His own way forever. This I now gladly did as the “reasonable service” (Rom 12:1–2) of a saved soul. It resulted in new blessings through the Holy Spirit’s power and also God’s work of “pruning” the branch of the vine that was now wholly His and that He must bring to greater fruitfulness (John 15:1–2).

Notes

1. This article appeared originally as the first three chapters in J. Irvin Overholtzer’s book by the same title, Salvation by Grace (Grand Rapids: Child Evangelism Fellowship Press, 1958). Minor adjustments have been made in spelling (e.g., Saviour to Savior) and capitalization (words in upper case were converted to lower case italics). A few sections of the article were excised for various reasons and are noted where they occur.
2. Jesse Irvin Overholtzer (1877–1955) was raised in a church that taught that praying and religion was for adults. He came to faith in Christ at the age of 20. Later, pastor J. Irvin Overholtzer began to be burdened for the salvation of children. He knew that if properly taught, children could understand the good news of salvation. With the help of Dr. Paul W. Rood and Dr. Harry A. Ironside, Overholtzer founded Child Evangelism Fellowship in May 1937.
3. A section entitled “By Grace Through Faith” was excluded at this point due to length-of-article restrictions and enhanced readability.
4. Ed. Note: At this point the author included a long list of Bible texts proving that salvation is a free gift, is not of works, and is simply by faith. These were excluded to aid the flow of the article.

A Voice from the Past: What Is The Gospel?

By H. A. Ironside [1]

“Moreover brethren I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto 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” (1 Cor 15:1-4).

It might seem almost a work of supererogation to answer a question like this. We hear the word gospel used so many times. People talk of this and of that as being “as true as the gospel,” [2] and I often wonder what they really mean by it. What is the gospel? First I should like to indicate what it is not.

I. What the Gospel Is Not [3]

A. Not the Bible

In the first place, the gospel is not the Bible. Often when I inquire, “What do you think the gospel is?” people reply, “Why, it is the Bible, and the Bible is the Word of God.” Undoubtedly the Bible is the Word of God, but there is a great deal in that Book that is not gospel.

“The wicked shall be turned into Hell with all the nations that forget God.” [4] That is in the Bible, and it is terribly true; but it is not gospel.

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” [5] That is in the Bible, but it is not gospel.

Our English word gospel just means the good spell and the word spell is the old Anglo-Saxon word for “tidings,” the good tidings, the good news. The original word translated gospel, which we have taken over into the English with little alteration is the word, “evangel,” [6] and it has the same meaning, the good news. The gospel is God’s good news for sinners. The Bible contains the gospel, but there is a great deal in the Bible which is not gospel.

B. Not the Commandments

The gospel is not just any message from God telling man how he should behave. “What is the gospel?” I asked a man this question some time ago, and he answered, “Why I should say it is the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and I think if a man lives up to them he is all right.” Well, I fancy he would be; but did you ever know anybody who lived up to them? The Ten Commandments ask of sinful man an obedience that no fallen creature has ever given. The Sermon on the Mount demands a righteousness which no unregenerate man has been able to produce. The law is not the gospel; it is the very antithesis of the gospel. In fact, the law was given by God to show men their need for the gospel.

“The law,” says the Apostle Paul, speaking as a Jewish convert, “was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But after that Christ is come we are no longer under the schoolmaster.”

C. Not Repentance

The gospel is not a call to repentance, or to amendment of one’s ways, to make restitution for his past sins, or to promise to do better in the future. These things are all perfectly right and perfectly proper in their place, but they do not constitute the gospel; for the gospel is not good advice to be obeyed, it is good news to be believed. Do not make the mistake then of thinking that the gospel is a call to duty or a call to reformation, a call to better your condition, to behave yourself in a more perfect way than you have been doing in the past.

D. Not Giving Up the World

Nor is the gospel a demand that you give up the world, that you give up your sins, that you break off bad habits and try to cultivate good ones. You may do all these things and yet never believe the gospel, and consequently never be saved at all.

There are seven designations of the gospel in the NT, but over and above all these, let me draw your attention to the fact that when this blessed message is mentioned, it is invariably accompanied by the definite article. Over and over and over again in the NT we read of the gospel. It is the gospel; not a gospel. People tell us there are a great many different gospels; but there is only one! When certain teachers came to the Galatians and tried to turn them away from the simplicity that was in Christ Jesus by teaching “another gospel,” the apostle said that it was a different gospel, but not another, for there is none other than the gospel. It is down-right exclusive; it is God’s revelation to sinful man.

E. Not Comparative Religion

The scholars of this world talk of the “Science of Comparative Religions,” and it is very popular nowadays to say, “We cannot any longer go to heathen nations and preach to them as in the days gone by, because we are learning that their religions are just as good as ours and the thing to do now is to share with them, to study the different religions, take the good out of them all, and in this way lead the world into a sense of brotherhood and unity.”

So in our great universities and colleges men study this Science of Comparative Religions, and they compare all these different religious systems one with another. There is a Science of Comparative Religions, but the gospel is not one of them. All the different religions in the world may well be studied comparatively, for at rock-bottom they are all alike; they all set man at trying to earn his own salvation. They may be called by different names, and the things that men are called to do may be different in each case, but they all set men trying to save their own souls and earn their way into the favor of God. In this they stand in vivid contrast with the gospel, for the gospel does not come to men to tell them to do anything, but the gospel is that glorious message that tells us what God has done for us in order that guilty sinners may be saved.

II. The Seven Designations of This Gospel

A. The Gospel of the Kingdom [7]

When I use that term I am not thinking particularly of any dispensational [8] application, but of this blessed truth that it is only through believing the gospel that men are born into the Kingdom of God. We sing:

“A ruler once came to Jesus by night,
To ask Him the way of salvation and light;
The Master made answer in words true and plain,
‘ye must be born again.’”

But neither Nicodemus, nor you, nor I, could ever bring this about ourselves. We had nothing to do with our first birth, and can have nothing to do with our second birth. It must be the work of God, and it is wrought through the gospel. That is why the gospel is called the gospel of the Kingdom, for, “Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” [9] “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever…And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” [10]

Everywhere that Paul and his companion apostles went they preached the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and they showed that the only way to get into that Kingdom was by a second birth, and that the only way whereby the second birth could be brought about was through believing the gospel. It is the gospel of the Kingdom.

B. The Gospel of God

God is the source of it, and it is altogether of Himself. No man ever thought of a gospel like this. The very fact that all the religions of the world set man to try to work for his own salvation indicates the fact that no man would ever have dreamed of such a gospel as that which is revealed in this Book. It came from the heart of God; it was God who “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” [11] “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” [12[ And because it is the gospel of God, God is very jealous of it. He wants it kept pure. He does not want it mixed with any of man’s theories or laws; He does not want it mixed up with religious ordinances or anything of that kind. The gospel is God’s own pure message to sinful man. God grant that you and I may receive it as in very truth the gospel of God.

C. The Gospel of His Son

It is the gospel of God’s Son not merely because the Son went everywhere preaching the gospel, but because He is the theme of it. “When it pleased God,” says the apostle, “who called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the nations; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” [13] “We preach Christ crucified…the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” [14] No man preaches the gospel who is not exalting the Lord Jesus. It is God’s wonderful message about His Son. How often I have gone to meetings where they told me I would hear the gospel, and instead of that I have heard some bewildered preacher talk to a bewildered audience about everything and anything, but the Lord Jesus Christ.

The gospel has to do with nothing else but Christ. It is the gospel of God’s Son.

D. The Gospel of Christ

The Apostle Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost of the risen Savior, says, “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” [15] and he speaks of Him as the anointed one, exalted at God’s right hand.

The gospel is the gospel of the Risen Christ. There would be no gospel for sinners if Christ had not been raised. So the apostle says, “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” [16]

A great New York preacher—great in his impertinence, at least—said some years ago, preaching a so-called Easter sermon, “The body of Jesus still sleeps in a Syrian tomb, but His soul goes marching on.”

That is not the gospel of Christ. We are not preaching the gospel of a dead Christ, but of a living Christ who sits exalted at the Father’s right hand, and is living to save all who put their trust in Him. That is why those of us who really know the gospel never have any crucifixes around our churches or in our homes. The crucifix represents a dead Christ hanging languid on a cross of shame. But we are not preaching a dead Christ; we are not pointing men to a dead Christ; we are preaching a living Christ. He lives exalted at God’s right hand, and He “saves to the uttermost all who come to God by Him.” [17]

E. The Gospel of the Grace of God

It leaves no room whatever for human merit. It just brushes away all man’s pretension to any goodness, to any desert excepting judgment. It is the gospel of Grace, and grace is God’s free unmerited favor to those who have merited the very opposite. It is as opposite to works as oil is to water. “If by grace,” says the Spirit of God, “then it is no more works…but if it be of works, then is it no more grace.” [18]

People say, “But you must have both.” I have heard it put like this: There was a boatman and two theologians in a boat, and one was arguing that salvation was by faith and the other by works. The boatman listened, and then said, “Let me tell you how it looks to me. Suppose I call this oar Faith and this one Works. If I pull on this one, the boat goes around; if I pull on this other one, it goes around the other way, but if I pull on both oars, I get you across the river.”

I have heard many preachers use that illustration to prove that we are saved by faith and works. That might do if we were going to heaven in a rowboat, but we are not. We are carried on the shoulders of the Shepherd, who came seeking lost sheep. When He finds them He carries them home on His shoulders.

F. The Gospel of the Glory of God

I love that name. It is the gospel of the Glory of God because it comes from the place where our Lord Jesus has entered. The veil has been rent, and now the glory shines out; and whenever this gospel is proclaimed, it tells of a way into the glory for sinful man, a way to come before the Mercy Seat purged from every stain. It is the gospel of the Glory of God, because, until Christ had entered into the Glory, it could not be preached in its fullness, but, after the glory received Him, then the message went out to a lost world.

G. Everlasting Gospel

It will never be superseded by another. No other ever went before it, and no other shall ever come after it.

One of the professors of the University of Chicago wrote a book a few years ago in which he tried to point out that some of these days Jesus would be superseded by a greater teacher; then He and the gospel that He taught would have to give way to a message which would be more suited to the intelligence of the cultivated men of the later centuries.

No, no, were it possible for this world to go on a million years, it would never need any other gospel than this preached by the Apostle Paul and confirmed by the Holy Ghost with signs following; the gospel which throughout the centuries has been saving guilty sinners.

III. The Gospel Declared

What then is the content of this gospel? We are told right here. “I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.” [19] There is such a thing as merely believing with the intelligence and crediting some doctrine with the mind when the heart has not been reached. But wherever men believe this gospel in real faith, they are saved through the message. What is it that brings this wonderful result? It is a simple story, and yet how rich, how full.

“I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received.” I think his heart must have been stirred as he wrote those words, for he went back in memory to nearly 30 years before, and thought of that day when hurrying down the Damascus turnpike, with his heart filled with hatred toward the Lord Jesus Christ and His people, he was thrown to the ground, and a light shone, and he heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul why persecutest thou Me?” [20] And he cried, “Who art Thou, Lord?” And the voice said, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” And that day Saul learned the gospel; he learned that He who died on the Cross had been raised from the dead, and that He was living in the Glory. At that moment his soul was saved, and Saul of Tarsus was changed to Paul the Apostle. And now he says, “I am going to tell you what I have received; it is a real thing with me, and I know it will work the same wonderful change in you, if you will believe it.”

First of all, “That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Then, “that He was buried;” then, “that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” Notice that phrase, “According to the Scriptures.” The gospel was no new thing in God’s mind. It had been predicted throughout the OT times. Every time the coming Savior was mentioned, there was proclamation of the gospel. It began in Eden when the Lord said, “The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head.” [21] It was typified in every sacrifice that was offered. It was portrayed in the wonderful Tabernacle, and later in the Temple.

We have it in the proclamation of Isaiah, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” [22] It was preached by Jeremiah when he said, “This is His Name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness” (Jer 23:6). It was declared by Zechariah when he exclaimed, “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Man that is my fellow…smite the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones” (Zech 13:7).

All through those OT dispensations, the gospel was predicted, and when Jesus came, the gospel came with Him. When He died, when He was buried, and when He rose again, the gospel could be fully told out to a poor lost world. Observe, it says, “that Christ died for our sins.” No man preaches the gospel, no matter what nice things he may say about Jesus, if he leaves out His vicarious death on Calvary’s Cross.

A. Christ’s Death—Not His Life

I was preaching in a church in Virginia, and a minister prayed, “Lord, grant Thy blessing as the Word is preached tonight. May it be the means of causing people to fall in love with the Christ-life, that they may begin to live the Christ-life.” I felt like saying, “Brother, sit down; don’t insult God like that;” but then I felt I had to be courteous, and I knew that my turn would come when I could get up and give them the truth.

The gospel is not asking men to live the Christ-life. If your salvation depends upon your doing that, you are just as good as checked in for hell, for you never can live it in yourself. It is utterly impossible. But the very first message of the gospel is the story of the vicarious atonement of Christ. Jesus did not come to tell men how to live in order that they might save themselves; He did not come to save men by living His beautiful life. That, apart from His death, would never have saved one poor sinner. He came to die; He “was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.” [23] Christ Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all. When He instituted the Lord’s Supper He said, “Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me…This cup is the new covenant in My Blood.” [24] There is no gospel if the vicarious death of Jesus is left out, and there is no other way whereby you can be saved than through the death of the blessed spotless Son of God.

Someone says, “But I do not understand it.” That is a terrible confession to make, for “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.” [25] If you do not understand this, if you do not see that there is no other way of salvation for you, save through the death of the Lord Jesus, then that just tells the sad story that you are among the lost. You are not merely in danger of being lost in the Day of Judgment; but you are lost now. But, thank God, “the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost,” [26] and seeking the lost He went to the Cross.

“None of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through,
Ere He found the sheep that was lost.”

B. The Necessity of Death

He had to die, to go down into the dark waters of death, that you might be saved. Can you think of any ingratitude more base than that of a man or woman who passes by the life offered by the Savior who died on the Cross for them? Jesus died for you, and can it be that you have never even trusted Him, never even come to Him and told Him you were a poor, lost, ruined, guilty sinner; but since He died for you, you would take Him as your Savior?

His death was real. He was buried three days in the tomb. He died, He was buried, and that was God’s witness that it was not a merely pretended death, but He, the Lord of life, had to go down into death. He was held by the bars of death for those three days and nights, until God’s appointed time had come. Then, “Death could not keep its prey, He tore the bars away.” And so the third point of the gospel is this, “He was raised again the third day according to the Scriptures.” That is the gospel, and nothing can be added to that.

Some people say, “Well, but must I not repent?” Yes, you may well repent, but that is not the gospel. “Must I not be baptized?” If you are a Christian, you ought to be baptized, but baptism is not the gospel. Paul said, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” [27] He did baptize people, but he did not consider that was the gospel, and the gospel was the great message that he was sent to carry to the world. This is all there is to it. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”

IV. The Gospel Accepted

Look at the result of believing the gospel. Go back to verse two, “By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.” [28] That is, if you believe the gospel, you are saved; if you believe that Christ died for your sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again, God says you are saved. Do you believe it? No man ever believed that except by the Holy Ghost.

It is the Spirit of God that overcomes the natural unbelief of the human heart and enables a man to put his trust in that message. And this is not mere intellectual credence, [29] but it is that one comes to the place where he is ready to stake his whole eternity on the fact that Christ died, and was buried, and rose again. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” [30] the work of salvation was completed.

A dear saint was dying, and looking up he said, “It is finished; on that I can cast my eternity.”

“Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die;
Another’s life, another’s death,
I stake my whole eternity.”

Can you say that, and say it in faith?

V. The Gospel Rejected

What about the man who does not believe the gospel? The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” [31] He that believeth not shall be devoted to judgment, condemned, lost. So you see, God has shut us up to the gospel. Have you believed it? Have you put your trust in it; is it the confidence of your soul? Or have you been trusting in something else? If you have been resting in anything short of the Christ who died, who was buried, who rose again, I plead with you, turn from every otherfancied refuge, and flee to Christ today. Repent ye, and believe the gospel. [32]

“Oh, do not let the word depart,
And close thine eyes against the light;
Poor sinner, harden not thy heart,
Thou wouldst be saved—why not tonight?”

This article is the second chapter of Ironside’s book God’s Unspeakable Gift (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1908). He makes many excellent points, often with wit and humor. Get ready to enjoy a feast that is just as relevant today as it was 90 years ago. Ed.

Notes

1. Henry Allen (known as H.A. or Harry) Ironside lived from 1876 to 1951. Pastor of Moody Memorial Church and Professor at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, he preached all over the country, averaging over five hundred sermons a year. He wrote numerous books and articles and was a tireless proponent of the Free Grace gospel. For further information see the Twentieth-Century Dictionary of Christian Biography, edited by J.D. Douglas (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995), 187.
2. Today this expression would be rendered “It’s the gospel truth!” Ed.
3. To adapt this book chapter to a journal article, this heading was added. All headings and subheadings have been given Roman numerals and letters, respectively. In a few places transition words such as “it is called” were removed since the outline form eliminates their need. Ed.
4. Ps 9:17. All Scripture in this article is taken from the King James Version.
5. Heb 10:31.
6. Greek euangelion. Ed.
7. Literally “the good news of the kingdom.” While Ironside fails to cite a single place where this expression occurs, he is making the point that the believer is guaranteed kingdom entrance. Ed.
8. Dr. Ironside was a keen dispensationalist, but he is not talking about that here.
9. John 3:3, 7.
10. 1 Pet 23–25.
11. John 3:16.
12. 1 John 4:9–10.
13. Gal 1:15–16.
14. 1 Cor 1:23–24.
15. Acts 2:36.
16. 1 Cor 15:17.
17. Heb 7:25.
18. Rom 11:6.
19. 1 Cor 15:2.
20. Acts 9:4.
21. Gen 3:15.
22. Isa 53:5.
23. Heb 2:9.
24. 1 Cor 11:24–25.
25. 2 Cor 4:3.
26. Luke 19:10.
27. 1 Cor 1:17.
28. If Christ is not risen, the point of 1 Corinthians 15, then believers have believed in Him in vain. Only a risen Savior, as Ironside earlier pointed out, can give eternal life to those who believe in Him. Ed.
29. It is not clear what Ironside means by this. He may mean understanding, but not accepting the gospel. Ed.
30. John 19:30.
31. Mark 16:15–16.
32. Mark 1:15. In light of his earlier assertion that repentance isn’t the gospel, Ironside’s reason for quoting Mark 1:15 here is a bit puzzling. However, his immediately preceding words, “turn from every other fancied refuge,” evidently explains his interpretation of “repent ye.” This is essentially the change-of-mind view of repentance. Thus he understands Mark 1:15 to mean something like this, “stop trusting in anything else to get you to heaven and believe in Christ.” Ed.

A Voice from the Past: The Heart Of The Gospel

By Arthur T. Pierson [1] [2]

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

Introduction

There is one text in the NT that has been preached from oftener than any other in the Bible. It has been the foundation of great revivals of religion, like that among the Tahitians; or that among the Telugus in India, where 2,222 people were baptized in one day, nearly 5,000 people in thirty days, and 10,000 people within ten months; and where, even during the year drawing to its close, nearly 10,000 more souls have been baptized. It is a wonderful text. Luther called it one of “the little gospels.” It is this (John 3:16): “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

You will naturally wonder what there is in that old text that is new. I have found something that was very new to me, and which also may be to you. I suppose that I had read that verse tens of thousands of times, and yet, a little while ago, as I was led to preach upon that text, I sought of the Lord a clearer view of it, that I might glorify Him, by bringing forth out of His treasure things new and old. After reading these familiar words over, perhaps a hundred times, prayerfully asking for new light and insight, there suddenly came to me this absolutely new discovery, as though one, looking up into the heavens, should see a cloud swept away from before the stars, and a new constellation revealed. It flashed on my thought that there are ten words in the verse that are quite prominent words, such as God, loved, world, whosoever, and so on. Then a little more close and careful search showed those words in a hitherto undiscovered mutual relation: the ten words were in five pairs. There is one pair of words that has to do with the two persons of the Godhead—God the Father and God the Son. There is a second pair of words that has to do with the expression of the Father’s attitude or posture towards this world—He loved and He gave. Then there is a third pair of words that refers to the objects of the divine love—world and whosoever. Then there is a fourth pair of words that shows us what the attitude of man ought to be when God’s love and gift come to his knowledge—believe and have. Then the last pair of words points us to the extremes of human destiny: the result of rejection, and the result of acceptance—perish and life.

Often as I had read this “gospel in a sentence,” I had never seen before that singular relation borne by the main words in the sentence; and, so far as I know, nobody else had seen it before; for it is one of the beautiful privileges about the study of the precious Word of God that the humblest believer who asks the grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in studying the Holy Scriptures, may make a discovery for himself that nobody has ever made before, or if so, without his knowledge; so that it is still his own discovery.

Let us look at this text in the light of this fresh arrangement of the thoughts which it contains. To my mind, it is one of the most remarkable discoveries that it has ever been permitted me to make in the study and exploration of the hidden treasures of the Word of God.

I. God and Son

In the first place, “ God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” There are two of the persons of the Godhead. Many persons are troubled about the relation of the Father to the Son, and of the Son to the Father. They cannot exactly see how Jesus Christ can be equal with God if He is God’s Son; and they cannot see how He can be as glorious as the Father, and how He can be entitled to the same honor and homage and worship as the Father if He proceeds forth from the Father, and comes into the world.

But let us seek a simple illustration. It is said, in the introduction of this Gospel according to John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” What is a word? It is the expression of a thought that lies in the mind. The thought is not visible, the thought is not audible; but, when it takes the form of a spoken word or a written word, that thought that was invisible in the mind, that you could not see, or hear, or know about in any other way, comes to your eye on the printed page, or to your ear through the voice of the speaker. And so my invisible thoughts are coming to you now through these audible words. [3] The word is so connected with the thought that it is the expression of the thought. The thought is the word invisible: the word is the thought visible. Now Jesus Christ was the invisible thought of God put into a form in which you could see it and hear it; and just as the word and the thought are so connected that if you understand the word you understand the thought, and if you understand the thought you understand the word; and as the word would have no meaning without the thought, and the thought no expression without the word, so Jesus Christ helps us to understand the Father, and the Father could not make Himself perfectly known to us except through the Son. But, again, we are told that Christ is “the Light of the world.” Suppose I should say, “In the beginning was the light, and the light was with the sun, and the light was the sun.” The sun sends forth the light, and the light proceeds from the sun; yet the light and the sun are the same in nature and the same in essence, and the glory of the sun is the glory of the light, and the glory of the light is the glory of the sun; and although the light goes forth from the sun, it is equal with the sun, shares the same glory, and is entitled to the same valuation. We cannot think of the one without the other.

In this text not a word is said about the love of the Son for sinners, nor a word about the Son’s offering of Himself for the salvation of men. What is the common, old-fashioned notion that we sometimes find cropping up even in the conceptions of Christian people as well as unbelievers, in these days? Many think of the Father as representing justice and of the Son as representing mercy. They imagine the Son as coming between the wrath of the Father and the guilty sinner.

It is very much like the story of Pocahontas, the daughter of an Indian chief, who came between the executioner and Captain Smith, when the executioner was standing with his club uplifted, ready to strike the fatal blow on the head of his victim.

The notion of a great many people is that God the Father is all wrath, and that we can never look at God or think of God, and that God never can look at us or think of us, except with a kind of mutual abhorrence and antagonism; and that so Jesus Christ incarnates the principle of love, and comes in between the angry God and the sinner. That is a very shallow notion indeed. Have you never got hold of the idea that the Father is just as much interested in you as the Son is, and that the Father loves you just as much as the Son does? Look at this verse. It puts all the glory of the love and the sacrifice upon the Father: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” He puts it thus that you and I may understand that our notion of the Son is our notion of the Father. When Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” Jesus answered, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, ‘Shew us the Father’?”

Do you not understand my thought if you understand my word? And if my word is the right expression of my thought, how absurd it would be for somebody to say, “I understand his word well enough, but I wish that I could understand his thought.” My word, being human, may not always properly express my thought; but with God the Word is the perfect expression of the thought; and so if you have understood the word you have understood the thought: and if you have understood the thought you have understood the word. If you have seen the Son, you have seen the Father. If the love of the Son has touched you, the love of the Father has touched you. If you worship the Son, you worship the Father. If you obey the Son, you obey the Father; so that you need not be troubled about your feelings toward the Father, and say, as many a person has said to me, “I wish that I could feel towards God the Father as I feel towards Jesus. I wish that I could have those views of God the Father that I have of Jesus. I wish that I could have the freedom with the Father that I have with the Son.”

Now, dismiss all that kind of trouble and perplexity from your mind; for as you think of the Son you think of the Father; as you love the Son, you love the Father; as you pray to the Son, you pray to the Father; and as you obey and serve the Son, you obey and serve the Father. The Son thinks of you just as the Father does, and the Father thinks of you just as the Son does.

“So near, so very near to God,
Nearer I cannot be;
For in the person of his Son
I am as near as he.
So dear, so very dear to God,
Dearer I cannot be;
For the love wherewith he loves the Son
Is the love he bears to me.”

II. Loved and Gave

The second pair of words is loved and gave. He loved and gave. I have no desire to enter into nice distinctions, but with the simplicity of a little child approach this heart of the gospel. And yet a child will understand that when we use the word love, we sometimes mean one thing and sometimes another. For instance, suppose that you should try to get some poor criminal out of prison—a miserable, filthy, degraded, defiled man. Somebody asks you why you do it, and you say that you love him. Now, that would not be taken to mean the same kind of love as you bear your mother. Those are very different loves—the love that you bear to your mother and the love that you bear to some vile criminal. The word love has a different meaning in different cases. The apostle John says, “We love him because he first loved us.” Was not the love of God to us something different from the love that we bear to Him? I love God because I know him to be the most beautiful, the most wise, the most glorious, the most fatherly, the most tender, the most compassionate, [4] the most gracious Being in the universe. Why did He love me? Because He saw that I was beautiful and truthful, and lovely, and honest, and honorable? Not so, says the apostle. “When we were enemies he loved us, and he commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” So there are two kinds of love. We call them the love of complacence and the love of benevolence. Complacence means a feeling of pleasure. You love a beautiful person, a lovely character, because you see something in the person and in the character that draws out your love.

But that is not the kind of love that we call the love of benevolence, for such love is bestowed on people in whom we do not see anything beautiful or lovely. We love them for the sake of the good that we may do them, and for the sake of the beautiful character that, by grace, we may help to develop in them. So, therefore, the love of complacence is intensive, but the love of benevolence is extensive; the love of complacency is partial, the love of benevolence is impartial; the love of complacency is exclusive and select, the love of benevolence is inclusive and universal. The love of complacence is a kind of selfish love, but the love of benevolence is a generous love. The love of complacency may be an involuntary love: we see the qualities that attract affection, and we love unconsciously and involuntarily; but the love of benevolence is voluntarily exercised. The love of complacence has to do with comparatively few of the people whom we know; the love of benevolence takes in the whole world, and hundreds and thousands of people whom we do not know, and never saw, but whom, for the sake of Jesus, we love.

Have you fixed that in your thought? The kind of love, then, that God had for us was the love of benevolence—extensive, inclusive, impartial, universal, self-denying, self-forgetting, voluntary.

Now, it is the characteristic of that kind of love that it gives. We call it the love of benevolence, and benevolence is another word for giving; and such love keeps nothing, but gives everything that it has, and gives to everybody. Of course, if God loved us after that sort He had to give. He could not so love if He did not give, any more than the sun could be the sun without shining, or a spring of water could be a spring without flowing out into a stream. And so these words, loved and gave, naturally go together. You could not have the one without the other. There could not be this wonderful giving without this wonderful loving; and there could not be this wonderful loving without this wonderful giving.

III. World and Whosoever

Now let us look at the third pair of words—world and whosoever.

It need not be said that those are both universal terms. World is the most universal term that we have in the language. For instance, we sometimes mean by it the whole earth on which we dwell; sometimes the whole human family that dwells on the earth; and sometimes the world-age, or whole period during which the whole family of man occupies the sphere. That is the word that God uses to indicate the objects of His love. But there is always danger of our losing sight of ourselves in a multitude of people. In the great mass individuals are lost, and it becomes to us simply a countless throng. But when God looks at us, he never forgets each individual. Every one of you stands out just as plainly before the Lord as though you were the only man, woman, or child on earth. So God adds here another word, whosoever, that is also universal, but with this difference between the two: world is collectively universal, that is, it takes all men in the mass; whosoever is distributively universal, that is, it takes everyone out of the mass, and holds him up separately before the Lord. If this precious text only said, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,” one might say, “Oh, He never thought of me. He had a kind of general love to the whole world, but He never thought of me.” But when God uses that all-embracing word whosoever, that must mean you and me; for whatever my name or yours may be, our name is whosoever, is it not? John Newton used to say that it was a great deal better for him that this verse had the word whosoever in it than the words John Newton; “for,” he said, “if I read ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that when John Newton believed he should have everlasting life,’ I should say, perhaps, there is some other John Newton; but ‘whosoever’ means this John Newton and the other John Newton, and everybody else, whatever his name may be.” Blessed be the Lord! He would not have us forget that He thought of each one of us, and so He said, whosoever. You notice the same thing in the great commission, “Go ye into all the world” (collectively universal) “and preach the gospel to every creature” (distributively universal).

Before I leave this pair of words, let me illustrate what a precious term this word whosoever is. It reminds me of the great gates of this Tabernacle, [5] that spring open to let in poor souls that want to hear the gospel. This word whosoever is the wide gateway to salvation, and lets in any poor sinner who seeks to find for himself a suffering but reigning Savior.

In the South Seas, in the beginning of the present century, was a man of the name of Hunt, who had gone to preach the gospel to the inhabitants of Tahiti. The missionaries had labored there for about fourteen or fifteen years, but had not, as yet, a single convert. Desolating wars were then spreading across the island of Tahiti and the neighboring islands. The most awful idolatry, sensuality, ignorance, and brutality, with everything else that was horrible, prevailed; and the Word of God seemed to have made no impression upon those awfully degraded islanders. A translation of the Gospel according to John had just been completed, and Mr. Hunt, before it was printed, read from the manuscript translation, the third chapter; and, as he read on, he reached this sixteenth verse, and, in the Tahitian language, gave those poor idolaters this compact little gospel: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

A chief stepped out from the rest (Pomare II), and said, “Would you read that again, Mr. Hunt?” Mr. Hunt read it again. “Would you read that once more?” and he read it once more. “Ah!” said the man, “that may be true of you white folks, but it is not true of us down here in these islands. The gods have no such love as that for us.” Mr. Hunt stopped in his reading, and he took that one word whosoever, and by it showed that poor chief that God’s gospel message meant him; that it could not mean one man or woman any more than another. Mr. Hunt was expounding this wonderful truth, when Pomare II said, “Well, then, if that is the case, your book shall be my book, and your God shall be my God, and your people shall be my people, and your heaven shall be my home. We, down on the island of Tahiti, never heard of any God that loved us and loved everybody in that way.” And that first convert is now the leader of a host, numbering nearly a million, in the South Seas.

Reference has already been made to the fact that this was the great text that Dr. Clough found so blessed among the Telugus. When the great famine came on, in 1877, and the missionaries were trying to distribute relief among the people, Dr. Clough, who was a civil engineer, took a contract to complete the Buckingham Canal, and he got the famishing people to come in gangs of four thousand or five thousand. Then, after the day’s work was over, he would tell them the simple story of redemption. He had not yet learned the Telugu language sufficiently to make himself well understood in it, but he had done this: he had committed to memory John 3:16 in the Telugu tongue. And when, in talking to his people, he got “stuck,” he would fall back on John 3:16. What a blessed thing to be able at least to repeat that! Then he would add other verses, day by day, to his little store of committed texts, until he had a sermon, about half-an-hour long, composed of a string of texts, like precious pearls. I have sometimes thought that I would rather have heard that than many modern sermons. So, once again the great text that God used for bringing souls to Christ was still Luther’s little gospel: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

IV. Believe and Have

Now we come to the fourth pair of words, believe and have. You will see how important these words are. If God so loved that He gave, what is necessary on the part of man? Only this, that he should take and have. That is very plain. If God loved you and the whole world, and gave you all that he had to give, all that remains for anybody to do is so to appreciate the love of God as to take the gift that God bestows, and so to have the gift that he takes. Believing is receiving. John, at the beginning of this Gospel, tells us in what sense he is going to use the word believe. That word occurs forty-four times in the Gospel according to John, which is the great Gospel of “believing.” You do not find the word repent in it once, but it is constantly repeating believing, believing, believing, and having life. In the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the first chapter, we read: “To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” “To as many as received, even to those that believed.” That little word even indicates that to believe is equivalent to receive. You may, in any one of those forty-four instances in this Gospel, put the word receive in the place of the word believe, and still make good sense. For example: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever received him might have everlasting life.”

You have what you take, do you not? It is a very simple thing to take what is given to you, and so to have it. That is, practically, all there is in faith. We may make faith obscure by talking too much about it, leading others to infer that there is in it some obscurity or mystery. Faith is very simple: it is taking the eternal life that is offered to you in Christ. If you can put forth your hand and receive a gift, you are able to put forth your will and receive the gift of God, even Jesus Christ, as your Savior.

I heard of an old lady, who was starting on a railway journey from an American station, out of which many trains move, although in different directions. Not having travelled much on the rail cars, she got confused. The old lady I speak of was going up to Bay City, Michigan, and she was afraid that she was, perhaps, on the wrong train. She reached over, and showed her ticket to somebody in the seat immediately in front of her, and said, “I want to go to Bay City. Is this the right train ?” “Yes madam.” Still, she was not quite at ease, for she thought that perhaps this fellow-passenger might have got into the wrong train too; so she stepped across the aisle of the car, and showed her ticket to another person, and was again told, “Yes, madam, this is the right train.” But still the old lady was a little uncertain. In a few moments in came the conductor, or, as you call him, the guard; [6] and she saw on his cap the conductor’s ribbon, and she beckoned to him, and said, “I want to go to Bay City; is this the right train?” “Yes, madam, this is the right train.” And now she settled back in her seat, and was asleep before the train moved. That illustrates the simplicity of taking God at His word. She did nothing but just receive the testimony of that conductor. That is all; but that is faith. The Lord Jesus Christ says to you, “I love you; I died for you. Do you believe? Will you receive the salvation that I bought for you with My own blood?” You need do no work; not even so much as to get up and turn around. You need not go and ask your fellow-man across the church aisle, there, whether he has believed, and received, and been saved. All that you need to do is with all your heart to say, “Dear Lord, I do take this salvation that Thou hast bought for me, and brought to me.” Simple, is it not? Yes, very simple: yet such receiving it is the soul of faith.

And what is assurance but consciously having what you take? Somebody comes and offers me, tonight, some freewill offering. It costs me nothing. All that I have to do is to take what is given to me, and have it for my own. Faith is the taking, and the assurance is the conscious having; and that is all that I know about it.

V. Perish and Everlasting Life

There remains another pair of words. Would to God that I might impress the meaning of those terms, perish and everlasting life! What does perish mean, and what does life mean?

When the prodigal son went into the far country, and had wasted his substance in riotous living, he came to himself; and he came back to his father, and he said, “Father, I have sinned.” And the father said, “This my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.” A son that is lost to his father is dead to his father, and a son that is found by his father is alive to his father.

God said to Adam, “In the day that thou eatest of the forbidden fruit, thou shalt surely die.” It did not mean that Adam should that day die, physically. It meant something worse than that. He died to God when he ate. One proof that he died to God when he ate that forbidden fruit is that, when the Lord God came down to walk in the garden as the companion of Adam in the cool of the day, our first parents shrank from the presence of the Lord, and hid behind the trees of the garden, when they heard His footsteps and the sound of His voice. They were dead to sympathy towards God, dead to love towards God, dead to pleasure in God: and so they tried to get out of the way of God—as if it were possible to put a veil between them and Him. How do you know you are dead to God? You want to get out of His way. You do not love the things that God loves; you would like to be independent of God’s rule. You would like, if possible, to get into some corner of the universe where there is no God.

You are like the men in America who went across to California, when the golden gates of that country were first opened, that they might enrich themselves. They tried to do without God, and there was a horrible state of sensuality and criminality there; and though there were, nominally, Christian families, and even Christian churches, these gold-seekers had left God on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, if not still further off, on the other side of the Alleghenies. They sought to get where there was no sanctuary, Bible, or family altar, and no restraint of Christian government, or recognition of a God above. The Psalmist twice says, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God”; and if you leave out the italicized words, which are not in the original, it reads like this: “The fool hath said in his heart,—No God!” That is, “I wish that there were no God.” The impious man hates God. It is an uncomfortable thing for him to think that there is a Sovereign of all the earth who will judge all the works done in the body. It is uncomfortable to think that beyond the grave there lie the great assizes of the judgment day, and that one is unprepared to go into that judgment, and meet the Judge. And so people try to make up their minds that there is no hereafter or judgment, and that there is no God. It is a sign that you are “dead” when you would like that there should be no God, and you do not want God to have any rule over you. And what is the sign that you are alive? You come to yourself, and then you come to the Father? You would not have God out of the universe if, by a stroke of the hand, you could annihilate Him. You would not have the judgment-seat out of the universe, for that is the place where all wrongs are righted. You would not have heaven blotted out, for that is where

The quenched lamps of hope are all re-lighted,
And the golden links of love are re-united;

and where there shall be no more sin, nor sorrow, nor sighing, nor tears; and where every shadow shall flee away. Paul says that the “woman who lives in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” [7] That is to say that, while she exists, she is so wrapped up in fashion, in ornaments, in the plaiting of the hair, and the putting on of gold and of gorgeous apparel—living for this world and her own indulgence, that she is dead to the things that are alone worth living for, and that take hold of the invisible, divine, and eternal.

Now, let us once more hear the word of the living God. God so loved you that He gave the best that He had to give, and all that He had to give; and while He gave to the whole world, He singled you out as the object of His love, and said, “whosoever”— “every creature.” And now that that gift is given to you, and there is no more to be given, God can do no more. He does not ask you to pay the one-thousandth part of a farthing for the priceless values represented in the Son of God. All that God can do now is to say to you that the very fact that you reject His dear Son is a proof that you are spiritually dead. Even though you dispute the fact, you are dead; as a deaf man may not understand how deaf he is, and a blind man may not understand the glories of sight, so a dead man cannot understand the energies of the living. And so the very fact that you think that you are not dead is another proof that you are. You have no sensibility even to the fact that you are spiritually without life. God comes and says, “Come back to Me, My prodigal and wandering son. You shall have the robe; you shall have the ring; you shall have the shoes. I will give them all to you with the absoluteness of an infinite love, and you shall take them, and have them because you take them.” Just the moment that you turn toward God, and say, “My Father, I take the robe and the ring, and the shoes, and the place of a restored son in the Father’s house,” you will live again; for you recognize your Father, and yourself as His son. You recognize His right to command, and your duty to obey. You recognize that the only place for a son is the home and the heart of his father. That is the proof that you are once more alive.

“Tell me how long it would take to change from death unto life?” Just as long, and no longer, as it takes you to turn round. Your back has been on God. You turn, and your face is toward Him. It will take no longer for a sinner to become a living son of God than that. Just put your heart into your acceptance of Jesus. Cast your whole will into the acceptance of the Fatherhood of God, renounce your sin and your rebellion, [8] and take the salvation that is given to you as freely as the sun gives its light, or the spring gives its stream; and before you turn round to go out of that church door, you may have this salvation, and perhaps enjoy in yourself the consciousness that you are saved!

Notes

1. This selection is taken from a book reviewed in this issue, The Gospel: Its Heart, Heights, and Hopes. The paragraph titles, American spelling preferences (honorable, etc.), some punctuation, and one vocabulary updating are the only changes made in the text. .
2. Arthur Tappan Pierson (1837–1911) first caught the attention of the world-renowned English preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon in 1889 during a missionary preaching tour in Great Britain. Spurgeon, who was ill at the time, was looking for someone to assist him at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. When Spurgeon died in 1892, Pierson continued to pastor the Metropolitan Tabernacle for two more years (1892–1894).
3. This was originally a sermon. Ed.
4. The original word was pitiful, which now has a negative meaning.
5. Pierson preached this at the famous Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.
6. The largely British congregation he was addressing. Ed.
7. First Timothy 5:6. 
8. Unfortunately, Pierson introduces a new concept, renouncing sin, here in the conclusion. John 3:16, of course, doesn’t say anything about renouncing sin. Earlier Pierson himself said the only condition is believing in Christ.