C H Spurgeon
I am told in the Word of God to believe. What am I to believe? I am bidden to look. To what am I to look? What is to be the object of my hope, belief, and confidence? The reply is simple. The object of faith to a sinner is Christ Jesus. How many make a mistake about this and think that they are to believe on God the Father! Now, belief in God is an after-result of faith in Jesus. We come to believe in the eternal love of the Father as the result of trusting the precious blood of the Son.
Many say, “I would believe in Christ if I knew that I were elect”. This is coming to the Father, and no man can come to the Father except by Christ. It was the Father’s work to elect; you cannot come directly to Him, therefore you cannot know your election until first you have believed on Christ the Redeemer, and then through redemption you can approach to the Father and know your election.
Some, too, make the mistake of looking to the work of God the Holy Spirit. They look within to see if they have certain feelings, and if they find them, their faith is strong; but if their feelings have departed from them, then their faith is weak. Thus they are looking to the work of the Spirit, which is not the object of a sinner’s faith. Both the Father and the Spirit must be trusted, in order to complete redemption but, for the particular mercy of justification and pardon, the blood of the Mediator is the only plea. Christians have to trust the Spirit after conversion, but the sinner’s business, if he would be saved, is not with trusting the Spirit nor with looking to the Spirit, but looking to Christ Jesus, and to Him alone.
I know your salvation depends on the whole Trinity, but yet the first and immediate object of a sinner’s justifying faith is neither God the Father, nor God the Holy Ghost, but God the Son, incarnate in human flesh. . . .
Hast thou the eye of faith? Then, soul, look thou to Christ as God. If thou wouldst be saved, believe Him to be God over all, blessed for ever. Bow before Him, and accept Him as being “very God of very God”, for if thou dost not, thou hast no part in Him.
Return to Table of Contents for The Free Presbyterian Magazine – January 2001