Taken with editing from the preacher’s Sermons. Grierson (1817-1880) was Free Church minister of Irongray, just west of Dumfries.
Hebrews 2:3a. How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?
A great subject is here introduced, and a solemn question suggested. First, the subject is salvation, the great salvation of the gospel; and second, the question is, How shall we escape if we neglect it? Such are the two topics which are to engage our attention at this time. May the Holy Spirit reveal to each of us personally something of the value of this so great salvation and give us a salutary sense of the fearful guilt and final ruin of all who shall be found at last to have carelessly neglected it.
- Let us calmly consider this subject: “so great salvation”. Its full measure far surpasses the highest conceptions that any of us can form of it in our present state. Yet some elements of its greatness are clearly revealed and, by availing ourselves of them, we may see the accuracy of the Apostle’s description. With this in view, let us consider (1) the nature of man, who is the subject of this salvation; (2) the depth of the degradation and misery that he is saved from; (3) the height of that glory and happiness to which he is exalted; (4) the display of God’s attributes in the whole scheme of salvation; (5) the divine dignity of the Saviour. And we shall, I do not doubt, perceive at every stage that the gospel salvation is indeed a great salvation.
(1.) Salvation is great, because it is the salvation of man in both parts of his being, having a material and mortal body, and an immaterial, immortal soul. When we speak of salvation, we are apt to think exclusively of the soul. But let us not forget that the body too benefits from redemption. The body is capable, as you all know, of great impressions of pleasure and of pain. All the senses of the body may be inlets of delight, and every nerve and tissue of it may be the source of excruciating pain. Our bodies must indeed soon mingle with the dust, but it is just as certain that they shall be raised up and reanimated at the resurrection, for “there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust”. And our bodies, when thus raised from the grave and re-united to our souls, shall never again be dissolved by death, but shall continue throughout everlasting ages in a state of the highest enjoyment or of the most acute suffering. The doctrine of the resurrection imparts high importance even to “the redemption of the body”.
But man’s body is only the casket; his soul is the precious gem. When God made man’s body of dust, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul”. A living soul is an awesome gift from the living God, for it is a gift never to be recalled. It is immortal; it is destined to an endless conscious existence of weal or woe. And the soul of man has wonderful powers. Its faculties are capable of indefinite expansion. It contains a principle of endless growth. In this respect, what a contrast does our nature present to that of the beasts that perish. Many manifestations of instinct in the lower animals are indeed wonderful. How exquisitely the bird constructs its nest, and the bee its cell. But no progress is made. No new invention or discovery is ever traced among the animals. They follow the laws of instinct implanted by the Creator, without advancing a single step. Instinct is stationary.
But how different is the history of the reasoning soul of man! The history of mankind has been one of progress in knowledge and skills. And are we to suppose that the progress of the soul is arrested after death? The Bible illustrates the expansion of our powers in a future state by contrasting the thoughts of our manhood with those of our childhood: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor 13:9-12).
Let us not forget that intellectual capacity, though a noble gift of God, may be perverted and become a curse, not a blessing; a source of misery, not of happiness. Some who had the highest endowments of mind have been among the most wretched. High endowments allied to depravity only expose those who have them to deeper misery. If the soul of man is capable of great joys and great sorrows during the few short years of this life, who can compute the joys and sorrows of its eternity? The soul’s powers will then doubtless be mightily enlarged in endless bliss or endless misery.
O that each of us were awake to the tremendous value of our nature when viewed in the light of the eternity that awaits us! How all earthly matters would, in comparison, dwindle to nothing. The rich are often ready to plume themselves on possessing a little uncertain riches, the poor to be over-anxious about the supply of their daily wants; we are all prone to overvalue the things of time. But “what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?” In those bodies of ours when raised from their graves at the resurrection, and in those rational and immortal souls with which we are endowed, each of us has a great heritage of ever-growing happiness or misery. Must the salvation of man not be great?
(2.) Salvation is great because of the degradation and misery that man is saved from. Healing implies sickness, restoration to life implies death, and the very announcement of salvation to man implies that he is lost.
Christ came to save the lost. I do not need to prove that we are all fallen and sinful creatures. Everyone’s conscience tells him so; the Bible proves it, and universal experience confirms it. We all confess that we are sinners. But what does this imply? It implies corruption and condemnation, or spiritual disease leading to eternal death. We need deliverance from both of these unspeakable evils, and the great salvation of the gospel delivers from both – from sin and hell. Christ “saves His people from their sins, and He also delivers “us from the wrath to come”.
Now sin is corruption, it is an abominable thing. The pure eye of Jehovah cannot look on it. Yet it has overspread our whole nature, darkening the mind and depraving the heart. We were created at first in the image of God. But how has the gold become dim, and the most fine gold changed! Our comeliness has been turned into corruption. Though children of God by creation, we have made ourselves children of the devil by our apostasy. We have cherished enmity to God in our hearts and manifested that enmity by wicked works. The sinner is very imperfectly acquainted with the fearful depth of his own depravity. This is itself a symptom of the disease. Our blindness to our true condition takes nothing away from its inherent loath-someness. When that loath-someness is presented to the saint in the light of God’s holiness, he exclaims, “Behold, I am vile”; and when it is set before the sinner in eternity, he will see his vileness when too late. For sin implies guilt, guilt implies condemnation, and how fearful is that condemnation!
As sinners think lightly of sin, so they wish to think lightly of its punishment. But if Scripture is our guide, we must realise that the punishment of the lost in the world to come is appalling beyond description. It is no light meaning that such Scriptural expressions have: “the spirits in prison”; “to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever”; “the cup of trembling”; “the wrath to come”; “shame and everlasting contempt”; “a furnace of fire”; “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”; “the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death”; “who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power”; “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”; and “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever”; “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, for every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt”.
As the roar of falling waters near the wanderer at night warns him that he is on the brink of some abyss, so these words from the lips of incarnate truth and love are surely fitted to warn us of some real tremendous danger. They present a terrible picture of the future punishment of sin. Does any one say the expressions are figurative? Some of them no doubt are; but is the meaning of these figures less terrible on that account?
But one thing is certain: both body and soul shall share in the punishment of sin, as both have been partners in its guilt. “Fear not them which kill the body,” says Jesus, “but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The lost sinner will have one hell within him; but he will also have another hell without and around him, for John tells us in his vision of the final judgement: “Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev 20:14). There are thus two hells, the one moral and the other material, awaiting the impenitent. When these two hells meet and the wicked stand confronted with their just and now-inevitable doom, need we wonder that “their faces gather blackness” and that they call on the mountains to cover them and on the hills to fall on them (Hos 10:8) or to crush them into annihilation?
But the cry will be fruitless. Not only do the Scriptures tell us that their punishment is to be eternal, but the very same term that is used to describe the endlessness of the joys of the redeemed is used to set forth the unending duration of the sufferings of the lost. See Matthew 25:46: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal”. In our version, the terms, everlasting and eternal, are different, but in the original the same word is used to set forth the endlessness of the punishment and of the life. As the life is not mere conscious existence, but one of conscious, happy existence and gracious reward that is to last for ever, so the punishment is not mere non-existence or annihilation, but existence for ever in misery as the just punishment of sin.
Surely those of us who believe these to be the true sayings of God, and ponder their awful meaning, must see that deliverance from such a bottomless abyss of misery is indeed a great salvation; while those who have never yet fled for refuge to Christ, if they would only see the danger in which they stand every moment, would be seized with very great trembling and be constrained to cry, “What must I do to be saved?”
(3.) Salvation is great because of the unspeakable value of the blessings it confers. It not merely delivers from sin and hell; it secures the richest and most precious blessings. It not only delivers from debasement and misery; it exalts to the highest dignity and happiness of which our nature is capable.
From the first moment that the sinner, when convinced of his own guilt and helplessness and of Christ’s suiteness and all-sufficiency, transfers his trust from himself and his own doings to the Saviour and His righteousness as his only hope before God, he is at once pardoned and accepted – freely, and for ever. Being now justified by faith, he has peace with God, to which he was formerly a stranger. He feels at times as if heaven had begun, and he rejoices with a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.
But the Christian’s joys are often clouded, and his heart heavy because of many infirmities and temptations. Sin still clings to him, though he longs and struggles to be free; his body too is subject to many diseases and pains, and the fear of death may at times subject him to bondage. But all these ills will only be for a little season. At death his soul shall be made perfect in holiness; at the resurrection his body shall be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body; and his whole spirit, soul and body shall be presented without spot in the Saviour’s presence, whence he shall go no more out.
How glorious is the prospect which the Bible opens up to the believer! It tells us that “if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. It sets before us a crown that shall never tarnish, an inheritance that shall never fade, “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”. All that is most attractive in God’s works is used to picture the future glory of the redeemed. At one time it is set forth in colours derived from Eden, where Adam and Eve walked in holy fellowship with God amid scenes of beauty and bliss. We see spread out before us in heaven fountains of joy through which flow rivers of pleasure: “He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Rev 8:15-17).
We see the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Its walls are of jasper, its streets of gold, its gates of pearls, and its foundations garnished with all manner of precious stones. Such is the city in which the redeemed are to dwell, and in which is the palace of the great King. “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it . . . and there shall be no night there . . . and there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev 21:23-27).
There we see a great multitude which no man can number, each of them wearing a white robe and waving a triumphal palm. After the privations of a long warfare, they now exult in victory and enjoy an endless peace, while they ascribe all the glory to the great Captain of their salvation. Therefore they joy before Him, “according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil”.
Again, heaven is likened to a great sanctuary filled with holy worshippers praising their King. We listen to their melodious voices as they sing the new song: “Thou art worthy: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests;” while more than ten thousand times ten thousand angels say with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever” (Rev 5:12,13).
Yet again the Saviour’s own description leads us to think of it as a quiet home, the Father’s house of many mansions, where Christ is now preparing a place for His people. There the whole family shall meet around their Father’s table. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, and He shall make them drink of the river of His pleasures.
Such are some of the pictures which the Bible presents of the heavenly inheritance. Many of them are figurative, but heaven itself is a glorious reality. What is the precise nature of the heavenly state and its enjoyments we cannot tell. This is what the revelation of glory alone can disclose. One thing is certain: neither sin nor sorrow can enter there; there will be everything that infinite love and infinite wisdom can contrive, and infinite resources furnish, to minister to the holy happiness of the redeemed. The actual reality will far surpass the highest anticipations of the most saintly mind. For “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him”. And then the crowning excellence of it all is its permanence. The inheritance is incorruptible, the crown unfading, the glory eternal. And enough is surely revealed to show that it is indeed a great salvation for lost, polluted sinners, sentenced to the second death, so that they may be restored to perfect holiness and raised to heavenly glory.
Whatever temptation a man rusheth confidently upon, he usually falls by. In temptation no believer is safe but the self-diffident and fearful, and fear of temptation acts in praying against it. Peter failed in his fearlessness. His going to the high priest’s hall, after the warning his Master gave him, was rushing on a temptation, and so came on it. It must therefore be a case wherein one is very needy of grace to help that Christ bids us pray against.
Robert Traill