C H Spurgeon
What a great word salvation is! It includes the cleansing of our conscience from all past guilt, the delivery of our soul from all those propensities to evil which now so strongly predominate in us. It takes in, in fact, the undoing of all that Adam did; salvation is the total restoration of man from his fallen state. Yet it is something more than that, for God’s salvation fixes our standing more secure than it was before we fell. It finds us broken in pieces by the sin of our first parent – defiled, stained, accursed. It first heals our wounds, it removes our diseases, it takes away our curse, it puts our feet upon the rock Christ Jesus; and having done this, at last it lifts our heads far above all principalities and powers, to be crowned for ever with Jesus Christ, the king of heaven.
Some people, when they use the word salvation, understand nothing more by it than deliverance from hell and admission into heaven. Now that is not salvation: those two things are the effects of salvation. Sinners are redeemed from hell because they are saved, and they enter heaven because they have been saved beforehand. Their everlasting state is the effect of salvation in this life. Salvation, it is true, includes all that, because salvation is the mother of it; but still it is wrong for us to imagine that this is all the meaning of the word. Salvation begins with wandering sheep; it follows them through all their mazy wanderings; it puts them on the shoulders of the shepherd; it carries them into the fold; it calls together the friends and the neighbours; it rejoices over them; it preserves them in that fold through life; and then at last it brings them to the green pastures of heaven, beside the still waters of bliss, where they lie down for ever in the presence of the Chief Shepherd, never more to be disturbed.
“Neither is there salvation in any other.” In olden times the heathen, who had different gods, all of them respected the gods of their neighbours. For instance, the king of Egypt would confess that the gods of Nineveh were real gods, and the prince of Babylon would acknowledge that the gods of the Philistines were real gods. But Jehovah, the God of Israel, put this as His first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”; and He would not allow them to pay the slightest possible respect to the gods of any other nation: “Ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves”.
One part of the Jew’s religion was, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is
1An edited extract from Spurgeon’s Words of Warning for Daily Life.
one God”; and as a consequence of his belief that there was but one God, and that that one God was Jehovah, he felt it his bounden duty to reject all pretended gods. Now the Christian religion, you observe, also rejects other religions. If you apply to a Hindu priest to know the way of salvation, he will very likely tell you, at once, that all persons who follow out their sincere religious convictions will undoubtedly be saved. This priest turns round to the Christian missionary and says, What is the use of you bringing your Christianity here to disturb us? I tell you our religion is quite capable of carrying us to heaven, if we are faithful to it.
Now just hear what the Christian religion says, “Neither is there salvation in any other”. The Hindu priest may admit that there is salvation in 50 religions besides his own, but we admit no such thing. There is no true salvation out of Jesus Christ. The gods of the heathens may approach us with their mock charity, and tell us that every man may follow out his own conscientious conviction and be saved. We reply, No such thing; there is no salvation in any other, “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”.
Now, what do you suppose is the reason for this? I believe it is just because the Christian has the truth. A thousand errors may live in peace with one another, but truth is the hammer that breaks them all in pieces. A hundred lying religions may sleep peaceably in one bed, but wherever the Christian religion goes as the truth, it is like a firebrand, and nothing can abide it unless it is more substantial than the wood, the hay, and the stubble of error. All the gods of the heathen, and all other religions, are born of hell, and therefore, being children of the same father, it would seem amiss that they should fall out and chide and fight. But the religion of Christ is from God; its pedigree is from on high and, therefore, when once it is thrust into the midst of an ungodly and gainsaying generation, it has neither peace nor treaty with them, for it is truth, and cannot afford to be yoked with error. It stands upon its own rights and declares that salvation is to be found in the truth, and in the truth alone.
Once I thought there was salvation in good works, and I laboured hard and diligently to preserve a character for integrity and uprightness. But when the Spirit of God came into my heart, “sin revived and I died”. What I thought was good proved to be evil; when I thought I had been holy I found myself to be unholy. I discovered that my very best actions were sinful, that my tears needed to be wept over, and that my very prayers needed God’s forgiveness. I discovered that I was seeking after salvation by the works of the law, that I was doing all my good works from a selfish motive, namely, to save myself, and therefore they could not be acceptable to God. I found out that
there were two very good reasons why I could not be saved by good works: first, I had not got any; and second, if I had any, they could not save me.
After that I thought that surely salvation might be obtained partly by reformation and partly by trusting in Christ; so I laboured hard again and thought that, if I added a few prayers here and there, a few tears of penitence and a few vows of improvement, all would be well. But after fagging on for many a weary day, like a poor blind horse toiling round the mill, I found I had got no farther, for there was still the curse of God hanging over me: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them”. And there was still an aching void in my heart that the world could never fill – a void of distress and care, for I was sorely troubled because I could not attain to the rest which my soul desired.
Have you tried those two ways of getting to heaven? If you have, I trust the Lord, the Holy Spirit, has made you heartily sick of them, for you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven by the right door until you have first of all been led to confess that all the other doors are barred in your teeth. No man ever did come to God through the strait and narrow way until he had tried all the other ways. And when we find ourselves beaten and foiled and defeated, then it is that, pressed by sore necessity, we betake ourselves to the one open fountain and wash ourselves there and are made clean.
I could turn to you myself and tell you that surely it must be possible for you to be saved, since I have found salvation in Christ for myself. I will never doubt the salvation of anyone as long as I can but know that Christ has accepted me. How dark was my despair when I first sought His mercy seat. I thought then that if He had mercy on all the world, yet He would never have mercy on me. The sins of my childhood and my youth haunted me; I sought to get rid of them one by one, but I was caught as in an iron net of evil habits, and I could not overthrow them. Even when I could renounce my sin, the guilt still clung to my garments. I could not wash myself clean. I prayed for three long years; I bent my knees in vain and sought, but found no mercy. But at last, blessed be His name, when I had given up all hope and thought that His swift anger would destroy me, and that the pit would open its mouth and swallow me up, then in the hour of my extremity He manifested Himself to me and taught me to cast myself simply and solely upon Him. So shall it be with you: only trust Him, for there is salvation in Him. Rest assured of that.
If you do not find salvation in Christ, you will never find it elsewhere. How dreadful it will be for you if you miss the salvation provided by Christ! For how shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation? Whether we are gross sinners or not, how fearful it will be for us to die without first having
found an interest in the Saviour! O sinner, this should quicken you in going to the mercy seat – this thought that, if you find no mercy at the feet of Jesus, you can never find it anywhere else. If the gates of heaven shall never open to you, remember there is no other gate that can ever be opened for your salvation. If Christ will refuse you, you are refused; if His blood is not sprinkled on you, you are lost indeed. If He keeps you waiting a little while, still continue in prayer; it is worth waiting for, especially when you have this thought to keep you waiting: namely, that there is no other way, no other hope, no other ground of trust, no other refuge.
There I see the gate of heaven. If I must enter it, I must creep on my hands and knees, for it is a low gate. There I see it; it is strait and narrow; I must leave my sins behind me, and my proud righteousness, and I must creep in through it. Come sinner, what do you say? Will you go through this strait and narrow gate, or will you despise eternal life and risk losing eternal bliss? Will you go through it humbly, hoping that He who gave Himself for sinners will accept you in Himself and save you now, and save you everlastingly?